THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


Copyright,  1903,  \>y  C.  M.  Boll  Photographic  Co. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT   TO-DAY. 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 

A   PORTRAIT   SKETCH 


BY 

FRANCIS    E.    LEUPP 


ILLUSTRATED 


D.    APPLETON   AND    COMPANY 
NEW   YORK MCMIX 


.-1 1—    / 


COPYRIGHT,  1904,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Published,  February,  1904 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE 


WHEN  I  was  asked  to  write'  a  book  about 
Theodore  Roosevelt  I  consented,  with  the 
stipulation  that  it  should  not  be  a  biography. 
All  I  was  willing  to  attempt  was  an  unpreten 
tious  portrait  sketch  of  a  man  as  he  had  re 
vealed  himself  to  me  not  only  under  the  lights 
of  an  exceptionally  brilliant  public  career,  but 
by  a  long  period  of  pretty  close  personal  con 
tact.  The  delicacy  of  such  an  undertaking  I 
did  not  realize  till  several  chapters  had  taken 
shape  and  I  began  to  feel  misgivings  as  to  my 
right  to  put  to  literary  use  a  knowledge  which, 
though  it  was  legitimately  mine,  had  come  to 
me  through  an  intercourse  untrammeled  by  any 
thought  of  type  or  printer's  ink.  But  I  per 
sisted  and  finished  my  task,  in  the  hope  that  a 
friendship  which  had  survived  so  many  years 
of  storm  and  stress,  such  differences  of  opinion, 
and  so  much  plain  speech  on  both  sides  might 
be  trusted  to  save  me  from  any  very  grave  sins, 

v 

256982 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


and  insure  forgiveness  of  my  lesser  shortcom 
ings. 

In  justice  to  all  concerned  it  should  be  noted 
that  no  one  but  myself  is  responsible  for  the 
contents  of  this  volume.  Not  a  line  of  it  has 
been  submitted  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  for  his  ap 
proval;  he  is  not  my  authority  for  a  single  state 
ment  about  himself  or  anybody  else  except 
where  I  have  tried  to  quote  him,  and  even  my 
citations  of  his  words  are  wholly  from  memory. 
If  he  has  been  misrepresented  anywhere  the 
fault  is  mine,  not  his,  since  I  have  scrupulously 
avoided  consulting  him  on  subjects  which  I 
could  treat  frankly  on  my  own  account,  but 
which  it  might  embarrass  him  to  discuss. 
Moreover,  in  trying  to  state  his  position  on 
public  questions  with  absolute  fairness,  I  would 
not  be  understood  as  always  sharing  it.  The 
sole  point  kept  in  view  has  been  to  write  facts, 
leaving  the  morals  to  draw  themselves.  Know 
ing  that  it  is  the  subject,  and  not  the  author,  in 
whom  the  public  is  interested,  I  have  striven 
to  keep  my  picture  as  free  as  possible  from  di 
dactic  color. 

This  series  of  disclaimers  would  be  incom 
plete  if  I  did  not  forestall  the  solicitude  of  sun 
dry  critics  by  absolving  the  New  York  Evening 

vi 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE 


Post  from  all  accountability  for  my  treatment 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  his  ideas  and  his  methods. 
As  the  fruit  of  thirty  years'  association  with  that 
journal  editorially  and  as  correspondent,  I  can 
pay  it  no  higher  tribute  than  to  say  that  it  is 
wholly  sincere  in  its  desire  to  give  all  sides  a 
fair  hearing,  and  that  it  looks  to  the  trusted 
members  of  its  staff  for  the  same  freedom  of 
thought  and  candor  of  expression  which  it  de 
mands  as  a  right  for  itself. 

No  one  could  be  more  sensible  of  the  in 
adequacy  of  this  book  than  he  who  wrote  it  at 
brief  notice,  and  in  the  intervals  of  a  most  ab 
sorbing  calling.  That  he  has  been  able  to  turn 
out  even  so  imperfect  a  product  under  such  con 
ditions,  his  thanks  are  due  to  a  little  home  circle 
whose  members  vied  with  each  other  in  pro 
tecting  him  from  needless  interruptions  and 
smoothing  in  their  several  ways  the  rough  places 
in  the  path  of  authorship. 

F.  E.  L. 

WASHINGTON,  January  i,  1904. 


Vll 


CHRONOLOGY 


THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  President  of  the  United  States,  was  de 
scended  from  Claes  Martenzoon  Van  Rosevelt,  who  migrated  from 
Holland  to  America  in  1 649  ;  through  other  ancestors  acquired 
Scotch-Irish  blood  ;  was  the  son  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  of  New 
York  city,  and  Martha  Bulloch  of  Roswell,  Ga. 

Born  in  New  York  city,  October  27,  1858. 

Graduated  at  Harvard  University,  1880. 

Served  in  the  New  York  State  Assembly,  1882,  1883,  1884. 

Chairman  of  New  York  delegation  to  Republican  National 
Convention,  1884. 

Defeated  as  Republican  candidate  for  Mayor  of  New  York 
city,  1886. 

United  States  Civil-Service  Commissioner,  1889  to  1895. 

President  of  Board  of  Police  Commissioners,  New  York  city, 
1895  to  1897. 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  1897—98. 

Lieutenant- Colonel  and  Colonel  of  the  First  Volunteer  Cavalry 
("  Rough  Riders ")  Regiment  in  the  war  with  Spain,  1898. 

Governor  of  New  York,  1899-1900. 

Vice- President  of  the  United  States,  1901. 

President  of  the  United  States  since  the  death  of  President 
McKinley,  September  14,  1901. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    KEY    TO    A    REMARKABLE    CAREER 

PAGE 

Reversing  the  tide  of  fate — A  good  use  for  disappoint 
ments — "  Going  ahead  " — The  Isthmian  imbroglio — 
One  of  four  alternatives — Warning  to  Turkey — A  recipe 
for  success 3 


CHAPTER   II 

AT    THE    PARTING    OF    THE    WAYS 

Republican  crisis  of  1884 — First  break  with  the  Independ 
ents — A  party  man  still — Running  for  Governor — 
Why  a  program  failed — Second  break  with  the  Inde 
pendents — A  hitherto  unpublished  letter 16 

CHAPTER   III 

KNIGHT    ERRANT    OF    CIVIL-SERVICE    REFORM 

How  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  Commissioner — Publicity  for 
the  merit  system — Bringing  up  the  Southern  quotas — 
Tilts  with  Congress — Competitive  examinations  and  the 

police 32 

xi 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   IV 

A    FEW    FRIENDS 

PAGE 

Premature  alarm  of  the  conservatives — Senator  Lodge's  rela 
tions  with  the  President — Other  men  who  have  helped — 
"My  regiment" — Familiarity  and  faith — The  case  of 
Ben  Daniels 53 


CHAPTER    V 

PRESIDENT    AND    CABINET 

Official  families  by  inheritance — First  break  in  the  Roosevelt 
Cabinet — What  led  to  Mr.  Gage's  resignation — A  quaint 
tribute — Other  changes — A  new  chair  at  the  table,  and 
how  rilled 71 

CHAPTER   VI 

TWO    COUNCILORS    IN    PARTICULAR 

Secretary  Shaw's  personality — His  rise  in  the  world — A 
Yankee  who  "  gets  there  " — Postmaster-General  Payne — 
The  Cabinet  politician — Faulty  training  for  an  investi 
gator  83 

CHAPTER   VII 

"  THE    LARGER    GOOD  "    AND    "  THE    BEST    HE    COULD " 

The  Cuban  reciprocity  fight — Buying  coalers  for  the  navy — 
An  attorney  rebuked — New  York  liquor  law  enforce 
ment — The  Shidy  case — Keeping  faith  with  a  scamp  .  .103 

xii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   VIII 

OUR    BOSS    SYSTEM    AND    MR.    PLATT 

PACE 

Overgrowth  of  Senate  influence — A  middle  course — Typ 
ical  cases — How  bad  selections  are  foisted  on  a  Presi 
dent — New  York  custom-house  changes — The  Immigra 
tion  Service  controversy — A  clean  sweep 121 

CHAPTER   IX 

SOME    OF    THE    OTHER    BOSSES 

State  dictators  in  the  Senate — Quay  and  his  machine — 
The  typical  case  of  McClain  and  McCoach — Cold 
comfort  for  warring  bosses — Addicksism,  Byrne,  and 
Miss  Todd 137 

CHAPTER   X 

THE    SECOND-TERM    IDEA 

The  President's  desire  for  reelection — Republican  rivals  who 
dropped  out — The  Hanna  "boom'' — Real  loyalty 
appreciated — Cleveland,  Gray,  and  the  coal  strike 
arbitration 156 

CHAPTER   XI 

A    FIGHTER    AND    HIS    METHODS     "^X* 

Love  ot  matching  skill  and  strength — A  generous  adver 
sary — The  census  spoilsmen's  grievance — Harun-aJ- 
Raschid  and  the  police — How  a  demonstration  failed  .  .176 

xiii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   XII 

WAR    AND    PEACE 

PAGE 

A  much  misunderstood  philosophy — Manly  sports  as  a  life 
preparation — Mr.  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  Spain — 
The  Monroe  doctrine,  the  Hague  court,  and  the  Kishencv 
petition 193 

CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  SOUTH  AND  THE  NEGRO 

Two  questions  that  blend — A  policy  never  before  tried — Ideal 
conditions  for  inaugurating  it — The  Booker  Washington 
dinner  incident — A  needless  uproar — Dr.  Crum's  collec- 
torship 213 

CHAPTER   XIV 

CAPITAL    AND    LABOR 

Combination  in  both  fields — Labor  unions  and  the  civil  serv 
ice — The  Miller  case — Overlooked  facts  in  the  coal 
arbitration  —  Things  a  demagogue  would  not  have 
done 232 

CHAPTER   XV 


Why  one  corporation  is  sued  and  another  not — Prudential 
value  of  publicity — Free-trader  versus  Republican — A 
Philippine  forecast  sustained — Tropical  colonies  and  the 
flag 250 

XIV 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   XVI 

A    CREATURE    OF    IMPULSE 

PACE 

Sudden  whim  or  quick  judgment  ? — How  the  coal  arbitra 
tion  was  set  afoot — The  franchise  tax — A  Jew-baiting 
campaign  flattened  out — Vigorous  indorsement  on  a  pardon 
petition 272 

CHAPTER   XVII 

THE    MAN    OF    MANY    PARTS 

A  marvel  of  versatility — Spoiling  an  embryo  naturalist — 
Perils  of  an  emphatic  style — Masterful  manners — Mr. 
Roosevelt's  work  as  an  author — Method  of  composi 
tion — His  newspaper  reading 290 

CHAPTER   XVIII 

SOME    CHARACTERISTIC    TRAITS 

Horsemanship  and  hard  tramps — The  family  man  at  home 
— Rollicking  with  the  children — A  champion  of  chaste 
living — White  House  hospitalities — The  religious  life  of 
the  President 309 

CHAPTER   XIX 

CONCLUSION 

Unique   feature   of  Mr.    Roosevelt's   career — Purpose  of  this 

review — The  future 325 


XV 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


TAG*. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  to-day.          .          .          .      Frontitpiece 

Theodore  Roosevelt  at  twenty-four        ....         20 

Colonel  of  the  Rough  Riders        .          .          .          .          .62 

The  President's  home,  Oyster  Bay,  Long  Island     .          .100 
The  gun  room  at  Sagamore  Hill  .          .          .          .150 

An  afternoon  gallop    .  .  .          .          .          .          .198 

Speaking  to  the  people  from  a  car  platform   .          .          .       252 
The  Roosevelt  family  .          .          .          .          .          .314 

xvii 


THE    MAN    ROOSEVELT 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   KEY  TO  A  REMARKABLE  CAREER 

Reversing  the  tide  of  rate — A  good  use  for  disappointments—- 
"Going  ahead" — The  Isthmian  imbroglio — One  of  four 
alternatives — Warning  to  Turkey — A  recipe  for  success. 

WHEN  Senator  Depew,  in  his  speech  nom 
inating  Theodore  Roosevelt  for  Vice-President, 
called  him  "an  Eastern  man  with  Western  char 
acteristics,"  he  stated  only  a  half-truth.  He 
might  have  described  his  candidate  as  the  great 
est  living  all-around  antithesis.  Reared  amid 
conditions  which  pointed  to  a  life  of  leisure, 
Theodore  Roosevelt  voluntarily  chose  a  life  of 
hard  work.  Educated  in  a  social  atmosphere 
in  which  practical  politics  is  numbered  among 
the  vices,  he  deliberately  elected  to  become  a 
politician.  Physically  a  weakling  in  his  boy 
hood,  he  has  acquired,  by  Spartan  training,  a 
body  like  spring  steel.  Born  with  the  mental 
and  moral  equipment  of  an  independent,  he  has 
made  of  himself,  by  unremitting  endeavor,  a 
pretty  good  partizan. 

3 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Let  it  be  noted  that  these  changes  have  been 
wrought  by  the  sheer  exercise  of  will.  The 
man  has  conquered  nature.  Every  fresh  victory 
has  strengthened  his  self-confidence,  and  this 
confidence  has  furnished  the  propulsive  force 
for  his  next  assault.  It  is  said  that  Heaven  helps 
him  who  helps  himself.  Heaven  has  certainly 
been  very  kind  to  Theodore  Roosevelt;  for  in 
those  few  instances  where  he  has  helped  himself 
to  the  best  of  his  ability  and  failed,  some  other 
power  has  intervened  to  turn  defeat  into  a  sur 
prising  success.  Had  he  been  elected  Mayor 
of  the  city  of  New  York  when  he  ran  in  1886,  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  followed  the  local 
fashion  of  the  day  and  sought  a  reelection  at 
the  end  of  his  term,  and  thus  been  carried  too 
far  out  of  the  track  of  Federal  politics  to  have 
become  a  candidate  for  Assistant  Secretary  of 
State  under  President  Harrison.  Had  Secre 
tary  Elaine  favored  his  appointment  as  Assist 
ant  Secretary  of  State,  the  President  would  un 
doubtedly  have  appointed  him,  with  the  result 
that  he  would  have  been  kept  in  perpetual 
eclipse  by  the  greater  luminary  at  the  head  of 
the  department,  as  Mr.  Wharton  was;  instead, 
a  Civil-Service  commissionership  was  offered 
him  and  he  accepted  it,  and  the  free  swing  he 

4 


GOOD   USE   FOR   DISAPPOINTMENTS 

had  in  that  place  enabled  him  to  become  a 
national  character  and  paved  the  way  for  his 
later  promotions.  His  old  thirst  to  have  a  hand 
in  the  government  of  his  native  city  came  back 
to  him  after  he  had  passed  six  years  at  Wash 
ington,  and  he  yielded  to  Mayor  Strong's  solici 
tation  to  become  a  member  of  the  reorganized 
Police  Commission.  The  result  was  disappoint 
ing,  however;  for,  in  spite  of  a  series  of  notable 
reforms,  the  influence  of  one  of  his  colleagues 
blocked  so  many  of  his  projects  for  improve 
ment  that  he  was  glad  of  the  chance  afforded  by 
President  McKinley's  election  to  go  to  Wash 
ington  as  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  In 
this  position  he  was  largely  instrumental  in 
bringing  the  Cuban  controversy  to  a  head  and 
making  ready  for  his  experience  as  a  soldier. 
Again  observe  the  part  played  by  mischance. 
If,  when  war  came,  he  had  obtained  the  place 
on  the  staff  of  General  Fitzhugh  Lee  for  which 
he  originally  applied,  he  would  not  have  or 
ganized  the  Rough  Riders  and  become  the  most 
picturesque  figure  in  the  volunteer  army;  and 
it  was  on  his  war  record  that  he  made  his  cam 
paign  for  the  governorship  of  New  York. 

Then  came  another  bitter  disappointment. 
He  craved  a  second  term  as  Governor.    The 

5 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Republican  managers  in  the  State  at  large  were 
resolved  that  he  should  not  have  it;  for  this 
reason,  and  in  defiance  of  his  protests,  they  per 
sisted  in  pressing  him  for  the  vice-presidency. 
Never  was  honor  forced  upon  an  unwilling 
recipient  as  that  was.  He  pleaded  with  his 
friends  not  to  let  him  be  sacrificed;  he  fought 
off  every  suggestion  with  declarations  that  he 
could  not  and  would  not  accept  the  nomination; 
it  was  an  open  secret  that  neither  Mr.  McKin- 
ley  nor  the  recognized  leaders  in  the  convention 
wished  him  on  the  ticket  at  the  outset.  But  the 
New  York  delegation,  for  reasons  of  self-inter 
est,  were  bound  that  he  should  be  nominated; 
and  delegation  after  delegation  from  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley — where,  report  said,  Bryanism  had 
taken  a  fresh  lease  of  life — seconded  the  efforts 
of  New  York  on  the  ground  that  Roosevelt's 
was  the  only  name  they  could  conjure  with  in 
this  emergency.  He  was  elected  to  the  office 
he  did  not  wish,  and  had  used  every  device 
except  flight  to  avoid.  Once  more,  though 
through  a  tragic  and  abhorrent  medium,  the 
hand  of  destiny  performed  its  work,  raising  him 
to  the  highest  place  in  a  nation  of  eighty  million 
people. 

Call  these  reversals  "luck,"  if  you  will;  the 
6 


"GOING  AHEAD" 


fact  remains  that  had  Theodore  Roosevelt,  at 
any  stage,  been  discouraged  by  a  rebuff,  he 
would  never  have  reached  his  journey's  end. 
It  was  by  plunging  ahead  after  every  stumble, 
refusing  to  halt  even  long  enough  to  count  the 
stones  in  his  path,  and  doing  the  best  he  could 
wherever  he  happened  to  be,  that  he  gave  op 
portunity  its  perfect  play  and  lent  himself  to 
fortune.  This  is  the  epic  value  of  his  course 
through  life.  Its  more  commonplace  interpre 
tation  was  unconsciously  stated  by  him  in  his 
testimony  before  the  Commission  to  Investigate 
the  Conduct  of  the  War  with  Spain.  He 
had  been  describing  an  incident  which  ended 
in  his  finding  himself  suddenly  alone  in  the 
midst  of  a  forward  movement,  with  nobody 
from  whom  to  take  orders.  At  this  point 
he  paused. 

"Well,"  said  one  of  his  inquisitors,  who  had 
been  following  the  story  with  interest,  "what 
then?" 

"Why,"  answered  the  witness,  "I  have  al 
ways  found  it  a  good  rule,  when  in  doubt  what 
to  do,  to  go  ahead.  I  went  ahead." 

Within  a  few  weeks  we  have  witnessed  an 
incident  illustrative  of  this  trait  of  directness  in 
the  President.  I  refer  to  the  Panama  episode. 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


It  is  not  in  my  province  to  discuss  this  affair 
on  either  its  moral  or  its  legal  side.  Its  only 
usefulness  here  is  for  the  example  it  affords  of 
the  operation  of  a  certain  mental  characteristic 
which  has  played  a  dominant  part  in  shaping 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  career. 

We  may  dismiss  at  the  outset  the  idea  that 
the  secession  of  Panama  was  a  surprise  to  the 
rest  of  the  world.  For  years  the  tie  between 
this  state  and  the  main  body  of  the  republic 
of  Colombia  had  been  drawn  so  tense  as  to  be 
liable  to  snap  at  any  moment.  The  failure  of 
the  canal  negotiations  between  Washington  and 
Bogota  was  simply  the  last  straw  thrown  upon 
an  already  perilous  burden  of  discontent.  Any 
one  could  have  forecast  the  result,  though  with 
out  being  able  to  fix  the  precise  date  for  the 
revolution.  As  long  ago  as  the  signing  of  the 
Hay-Herran  treaty  it  was  so  well  understood 
that  either  Colombia  must  ratify  that  instru 
ment  or  Panama  would  take  the  canal  business 
into  her  own  hands,  that  the  diplomatists  in 
Washington  even  discussed  the  impracticability 
of  the  Bogota  Government's  sending  reenforce- 
ments  overland  to  its  army  on  the  isthmus. 
President  Marroquin  knew  what  the  alternative 
was;  so  did  Minister  Herran.  That  is  the 

8 


THE    ISTHMIAN    IMBROGLIO 

reason  both  worked  so  hard  to  push  the  treaty 
through. 

When  their  efforts  failed  the  expected  hap 
pened.  Panama  set  up  in  business  for  herself. 
Nobody  in  the  administration  at  Washington 
made  any  pretense  of  regretting  this  turn  of 
affairs.  There  were  no  hypocritical  tears,  no 
perfunctory  messages  of  condolence.  On  the 
contrary,  the  President  lost  no  time  in  recog 
nizing  the  new  republic,  which  in  its  turn  lost 
no  time  in  entering  upon  treaty  negotiations 
with  the  United  States.  Perhaps,  as  his  critics 
assert,  he  showed  indecent  haste  in  warming 
over  the  funeral-baked  meats  to  furnish  forth 
the  marriage  tables.  Be  that  as  it  may,  what 
he  did  he  did  without  concealment,  without 
hesitancy,  without  quibbling,  without  apology. 
There  was  no  secret  plotting,  no  clandestine 
correspondence  for  his  enemies  to  bring  to  light 
later.  He  was  as  little  concerned  in  the  revo 
lution  as  disconcerted  by  it.  As  President  he 
had  always  refused  to  discuss  the  likelihood  of 
its  occurrence;  as  a  man,  in  the  freedom  of  in 
tercourse  with  his  personal  friends,  he  had  never 
ignored  the  possibility  that  it  would  come. 
Every  act  of  his  in  other  emergencies  had  made 
it  plain  in  advance  how  he  would  act  in  this  one. 

9 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


"If  the  Colombian  Government  had  held  its 
own  on  the  isthmus,"  said  a  member  of  the  ad 
ministration  to  me  after  the  overturn,  "and  the 
revolutionists  had  made  the  disorder,  that  dis 
order  would  have  been  suppressed  forcibly  and 
at  once  by  the  United  States.  As  the  Colombian 
army  disintegrated,  however,  and  the  part  that 
remained  loyal  to  the  Bogota  Government  em 
barked  for  home  without  so  much  as  an  ex 
change  of  shots,  one  of  four  courses  lay  open  to 
the  President.  He  might  have  done  nothing, 
let  events  drift  till  our  Congress  had  convened 
in  special  session,  and  then  referred  the  whole 
subject  to  that  body  in  a  message;  that  would 
have  satisfied  the  demands  of  decorum,  but  it 
would  also  have  shifted  responsibility  from  his 
shoulders  to  others.  He  might  have  put  down 
the  rebellion  and  restored  to  Colombia  the 
authority  her  representatives  had  tamely  sur 
rendered;  that  course  would  have  fulfilled  the 
letter  of  the  guaranty  in  the  treaty  of  1846,  but 
would  have  been  open  to  the  same  line  of  attack 
as  the  retention  of  the  Philippines — the  main 
tenance  by  force  of  a  government  without  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  He  might  have  taken 
our  war-ships  out  of  isthmian  waters,  and  left 
the  Bogota  Government  to  send  in  its  troops  by 

10 


THE  EXPECTED  THAT  HAPPENED 

sea  and  handle  the  rebellion  as  best  it  could;  but 
that  would  have  been  the  signal  for  a  riot  of 
bloodshed,  the  interruption  of  a  transit  as  well 
guaranteed  as  the  sovereignty  of  Colombia,  and 
an  added  complication  from  French  interven 
tion.  Finally,  he  might  have  recognized  any 
government  that  was  for  the  time  in  peaceable 
possession  of  the  isthmus  and  in  a  position  to 
transact  business;  and  this  is  precisely  what  he 
did." 

It  was,  according  to  this  statement,  the  only 
direct  course  that  offered,  and  the  President 
followed  it.  There  were  no  precedents,  so  he 
established  one.  Whether  his  conclusion  was 
sober  or  ill  digested  may  be  open  to  dis 
pute  between  honest  men  and  patriots;  it 
was  at  least  absolutely  characteristic.  Any 
body  who  knows  the  President  must  have 
foreseen  just  what  would  happen  under  such 
conditions  as  confronted  him.  Equally,  no 
one  who  knows  him  need  be  told  that  he 
would  not  have  lifted  one  of  his  fingers  to 
bring  the  situation  about.  The  end  always 
in  view  was  a  canal  through  the  isthmus;  the 
revolution  placed  a  fresh  instrumentality  next 
his  hand,  and  he  laid  hold  of  it;  where  most 
others  would  have  halted  for  caution's  sake,  he 

n 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


"went  ahead."  Posterity  will  be  able  to  study 
this  episode  in  the  light  of  its  remoter  results. 
But,  in  any  event,  the  President's  directness 
and  candor  leave  no  mysteries  for  the  his 
torian  to  uncover,  and  when  his  own  genera 
tion  passes  judgment  on  his  conduct  for  good 
or  ill  it  will  do  so  with  the  full  knowledge  of 
the  facts. 

Last  summer  a  rumor  reached  this  country 
that  Mr.  Magelssen,  the  vice-consul  of  the 
United  States  at  Beirut,  Syria,  had  been  assas 
sinated.  Without  waiting  for  particulars,  which 
are  proverbially  long  in  coming  when  any 
thing  happens  in  the  Turkish  dominions,  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt  ordered  a  squadron  of  Ameri 
can  war-ships  to  the  scene  of  the  supposed  crime. 
The  suddenness  of  this  move  astonished  every 
one.  Representatives  of  European  powers  had 
been  assaulted  and  murdered  without  so  quick 
action  on  the  part  of  the  governments  concerned. 
Abroad,  the  President's  course  was  set  down  to 
his  impulsiveness;  at  home,  to  his  jingoism. 
The  friends  of  peace  were  alarmed  lest  it  should 
bring  on  war.  Others  condemned  it  as  a  bluster 
which  he  would  not  attempt  with  a  strong 
power,  but  which  he  felt  he  could  safely  try 
on  poor,  broken-down  Turkey. 

12 


WARNING   TO   TURKEY 


No  war  followed.  Fortunately,  the  original 
rumor  was  found  to  be  almost  groundless,  so 
there  would  have  been  no  cause  for  active  hos 
tilities.  It  is  true,  moreover,  that  the  same  tac 
tics  would  not  have  been  tried  with  England 
or  France  or  Germany.  But  why?  Because 
we  could  have  got  from  either  of  those  coun 
tries  in  three  days*  time  fuller  details  of  the 
Incident  than  we  could  get  in  three  months 
from  Turkey.  England  or  France  or  Ger 
many,  if  found  in  the  wrong,  would  have  apolo 
gized  at  once  and  offered  such  other  and  more 
substantial  reparation  as  the  occasion  seemed  to 
call  for.  Turkey  would  have  postponed  as  long 
as  possible  the  investigation  of  the  affair,  and 
then  the  apology;  and,  when  it  came  to  money 
damages,  she  would  have  tried  to  make  promises 
pass  for  piastres.  We  should  have  haggled  and 
worried  over  this  debt  for  five  or  six  years, 
served  a  series  of  quasi-ultimata  upon  the  Sul 
tan,  scaled  down  the  principal  a  little  when  he 
drew  a  poor  mouth,  consented  to  waive  interest 
charges  in  consideration  of  prompt  settlement 
of  the  remainder,  and  finally  received — as 
nearly  nothing  as  he  could  squeeze  or  coddle 
us  into  accepting.  Here  was  where  the  Presi 
dent's  directness  came  into  play  again.  He 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


knew  that  with  such  a  debtor  the  creditor  who 
acts  quickly  acts  twice.  The  Turk  was  doubt 
less  as  much  surprised  as  any  of  the  disinter 
ested  outsiders  when  he  discovered  that  the 
United  States  Government  was  not  deliberating 
what  to  do,  but  had  already  done  it — that  its 
war-ships  were  where  they  could  begin  business 
without  a  moment's  delay  if  a  needless  hitch 
occurred  in  the  diplomatic  correspondence. 

Granted  that  no  other  government  has  acted 
with  such  startling  suddenness  in  a  similar  case; 
it  is  also  true  that  no  other  government  could 
have  done  so.  The  Sultan  knew,  and  all  the 
rest  of  mankind  knew,  that  the  errand  of  that 
squadron  was  precisely  what  it  purported  to 
be — to  support  the  American  minister  in  his 
demand  for  immediate  satisfaction  for  the  mur 
der  of  the  vice-consul,  if  it  had  occurred  as 
reported;  that  behind  this  lay  no  ulterior  pur 
pose  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  to  find 
an  excuse  for  a  war  or  the  seizure  of  Turkish 
territory.  The  motives  of  any  other  strong 
power  would  have  been  under  suspicion.  Pos 
sibly  the  order  of  the  war-ships  to  Beirut  was 
a  hasty  step ;  of  that,  every  critic  must  be  his  own 
judge.  The  best  test  of  its  wisdom,  however, 
will  be  the  comparative  security  of  foreign  lives 


A   RECIPE  FOR  SUCCESS 


and  property  in  Turkey  for  the  rest  of  the  pres 
ent  administration. 

President  Roosevelt  is  not  a  genius.  He  is 
a  man  of  no  extraordinary  natural  capacity.  As 
author,  lawmaker,  administrator,  huntsman, 
athlete,  soldier,  what  you  will,  his  record  con 
tains  nothing  that  might  not  have  been  accom 
plished  by  any  man  of  sound  physique  and  good 
intelligence.  Such  prestige  as  he  enjoys  above 
his  fellows  he  has  acquired  partly  by  hard  work 
and  partly  by  using  his  mother-wit  in  his  choice 
of  tasks  and  his  method  of  tackling  them.  He 
has  simply  taken  up  and  completed  what  others 
have  dropped  in  discouragement,  sought  better 
ways  of  doing  what  others  have  done  before, 
labored  always  in  the  open,  and  remembered 
that  the  world  moves. 


CHAPTER   II 

AT  THE   PARTING   OF   THE   WAYS 

Republican  crisis  of  1884 — First  break  with  the  Independents — 
A  party  man  still — Running  for  Governor — Why  a  program 
failed — Second  break  with  the  Independents — A  hitherto  un 
published  letter. 

IN  the  summer  of  1884  a  man  not  yet  twenty- 
six  years  old  was  faced  with  a  problem  the 
solution  of  which  might  affect  the  whole  cur 
rent  of  his  life.  Though  still  a  mere  youth,  he 
had  acquired  a  reputation  as  wide  as  the  coun 
try  by  his  record  as  a  reform  legislator  in  his 
native  State,  New  York.  He  had  risen  to  the 
leadership  of  the  Republican  side  in  the  Assem 
bly  at  Albany.  His  ability,  his  pluck,  and, 
above  all,  his  honest  independence,  had  not  only 
fixed  the  eyes  of  his  fellow  countrymen  upon 
him,  but  forced  his  recognition  by  the  party 
managers,  so  that  he  had  been  sent  to  the  Repub 
lican  national  convention  at  Chicago  as  the 
head  of  the  State  delegation  to  take  his  first 
active  part  in  the  task  of  President-making.  In 

16 


PARTING   OF   THE  WAYS 

the  convention  he  had  fought  hard  for  his  can 
didate,  George  F.  Edmunds,  then  regarded  as 
the  special  champion  of  the  independent  ele 
ment  in  Republican  politics,  and  had  been 
defeated;  James  G.  Elaine,  the  candidate  against 
whom  the  whole  weight  of  the  reformers  had 
been  hurled,  had  been  nominated.  Not  a  few 
of  Mr.  Elaine's  other  opponents  had  declared 
in  advance  that  in  no  event  would  they  support 
him  for  President — they  would  sooner  go  out 
of  their  party.  The  convention  had  accepted 
their  challenge;  the  crucial  hour  had  come,  and 
they  must  now  retreat  or  make  good  their 
threats.  Already  the  press  was  bulging  with 
manifestoes  and  open  letters  and  interviews,  put 
forth  by  lifelong  Republicans  who  were  aban 
doning  the  ticket  to  its  fate. 

The  young  man  was  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
and  he  was  at  the  parting  of  the  ways.  On 
one  side  he  saw  George  William  Curtis,  Carl 
Schurz — in  short,  nearly  all  the  prominent 
men  on  whose  support  he  had  most  steadfastly 
counted — taking  the  road  that  led  toward  the 
Democratic  party,  at  least  for  the  time.  Be 
hind  him  lay  the  fruits  of  two  years'  work  in 
the  New  York  Legislature — hard  work,  sincere 
work,  which  had  told  its  story  for  good  gov- 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ernment.  It  had  been  done  not  by  the  sole 
power  of  his  own  speech  and  vote,  but  by  the 
combinations  he  had  been  able  to  form  with 
others  who  thought  and  felt  as  he  did,  or  who, 
lacking  both  logic  and  sentiment,  were  ready 
to  follow  him  for  discipline's  sake  or  motives 
of  expediency.  Although  individual  initiative, 
direction,  force,  were  essential  to  such  under 
takings,  and  the  successful  combination  was 
after  all  only  a  group  of  individual  factors,  yet 
he  realized  that  his  personal  efforts  could  not 
have  accomplished  anything  of  themselves. 
Should  he  now  turn  his  back  upon  the  past,  step 
out  of  the  ranks  of  the  political  army  in  which 
he  had  been  trained,  and  become  an  unattached 
sharpshooter?  He  could  not  -go  over  to  the 
enemy;  in  principles  and  spirit  they  had  prac 
tically  nothing  in  common;  there  was  no  bond 
of  sympathy  between  them  except  objection  to 
one  candidate. 

It  was  a  serious  dilemma.  Though  accus 
tomed  to  act  on  instinct  in  most  emergencies, 
he  hesitated  just  a  little  in  the  presence  of  this 
one.  There  were  Republican  dogmas  which 
he  had  not  yet  digested.  One  of  these  which 
would  probably  figure  largely  in  the  campaign 
was  the  dogma  of  high  protection,  while  his 

18 


WEIGHING   THE  REASONS 

Harvard  schooling  had  been  all  in  the  direc 
tion  of  free  trade.  He  was  fully  conscious  that 
an  administration  brought  into  power  by  Re 
publican  votes  had  carried  the  Union  safely 
through  the  civil  war,  and  molded  a  group  of 
sovereign  States  into  a  solid  unit,  yet  he  was 
far  from  accepting  the  extreme  views  of  a  large 
element  in  the  Republican  party  as  to  the  con 
tinued  penance  which  should  be  demanded  of 
the  South  for  the  sin  of  secession.  Neverthe 
less,  the  general  tendencies  of  the  party,  its 
national  aspirations,  its  disposition  to  test  new 
measures  in  statecraft  instead  of  rejecting  them 
because  they  were  new,  appealed  strongly  to 
him  on  both  his  temperamental  and  his  practi 
cal  sides.  It  was  the  only  party  in  which  he 
felt  at  home,  and  with  which,  in  spite  of  some 
differences  in  detail,  he  could  work  out  his 
projects  for  the  public  advantage. 

Should  he  go  out  of  the  party  and  stay  till 
the  present  storm  had  blown  over,  and  then 
come  back  again?  A  good  many  men  could 
have  figured  out  such  a  program  and  deliber 
ately  entered  upon  it;  with  him  it  would  have 
been  impossible.  The  only  question  he  had 
to  decide  was:  Stay  in,  or  stay  out?  He  had 
pledged  himself  to  no  course;  he  had  raised  not 

'9 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


a  hand,  uttered  not  a  word,  to  prevent  any  of 
his  colleagues  from  following  their  own  con 
sciences.  When  an  old  friend  and  fellow  Re 
publican  said,  "I  can  not  remain  in  the  party 
and  vote  for  Elaine;  if  the  Democrats  nom 
inate  such  a  man  as  Grover  Cleveland  I  must 
vote  for  him,"  Mr.  Roosevelt,  he  tells  me,  not 
only  made  no  effort  to  restrain  him,  but  an 
swered:  "Cleveland  would  be  the  best  man  the 
Democrats  could  name;  still,  if  I  felt  as  you 
do,  I  should  support  any  proper  Democratic 
nomination."  All  this  was  apart  from  the  ques 
tion  of  what  he  should  ultimately  do  himself; 
he  felt  very  sure  what  that  would  be,  but 
he  wished  to  think  it  over  before  making  an 
irrevocable  decision.  The  agitated  atmosphere 
surrounding  him  was  not  conducive  to  calm 
judgment.  Away,  therefore,  he  hastened  for  a 
brief  interval  of  quiet,  and  on  his  Dakota  ranch 
reviewed  the  whole  situation  in  his  mind;  then 
he  made  an  authoritative  statement: 

"I  intend  to  vote  the  Republican  presiden 
tial  ticket.  A  man  can  not  act  both  without 
and  within  the  party;  he  can  do  either,  but  he 
can  not  possibly  do  both.  Each  course  has  its 
advantages  and  each  has  its  disadvantages,  and 
one  can  not  take  the  advantages  or  the  disad- 

20 


THEODORE   ROOSEVELT  AT  TWENTY-FOUR. 


A   REPUBLICAN   STILL 


vantages  separately.  I  went  in  with  my  eyes 
open  to  do  what  I  could  within  the  party;  I 
did  my  best  and  got  beaten,  and  I  propose  to 
stand  by  the  result.  It  is  impossible  to  com 
bine  the  functions  of  a  guerrilla  chief  with 
those  of  a  colonel  in  the  regular  army;  one  has 
greater  independence  of  action,  the  other  is  able 
to  make  what  action  he  does  take  vastly  more 
effective.  In  certain  contingencies  the  one  can 
do  most  good,  in  certain  contingencies  the  other ; 
but  there  is  no  use  in  accepting  a  commission 
and  then  trying  to  play  the  game  out  on  a  lone 
hand.  During  the  entire  canvass  for  the  nom 
ination  Mr.  Elaine  received  but  two  checks.  I 
had  a  hand  in  both,  and  I  could  have  had  a 
hand  in  neither  had  not  those  Republicans  who 
elected  me  the  head  of  the  New  York  State 
delegation  supposed  that  I  would  in  good  faith 
support  the  man  who  was  fairly  made  the  Re 
publican  nominee.  I  am  by  inheritance  and 
by  education  a  Republican;  whatever  good  I 
have  been  able  to  accomplish  in  public  life  has 
been  accomplished  through  the  Republican 
party;  I  have  acted  with  it  in  the  past,  and  wish 
to  act  with  it  in  the  future." 

After  his  summer's  recreation  he  was  called 
upon  for  a  few  speeches.     He  had  little  to  say, 

21 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


and  nothing  that  was  not  kindly  in  purport,  of 
his  former  associates  who  had  parted  company 
with  him  at  Chicago,  but  one  of  his  utterances 
should  be  quoted  as  throwing  further  light  upon 
his  attitude:  "It  has  always  been  my  luck  in 
politics,  and  I  suppose  always  will  be,  to  offend 
some  wing  of  the  party — generally  the  machine, 
but  sometimes  the  independents.  I  should 
think  little  of  myself  should  I  permit  the  inde 
pendents  to  dictate  to  me  any  more  than  the 
machine." 

On  his  return  from  Cuba,  after  the  Spanish 
War,  a  second  crisis  occurred  in  the  career  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  Politics  in  New  York  were  in 
a  state  of  upheaval.  It  was  plain  that  Governor 
Black's  administration  would  be  followed  by  a 
Democratic  sweep  at  the  polls  unless  the  Re 
publicans  could  find  a  candidate  so  popular  on 
his  own  account  as  to  pull  the  whole  ticket 
through.  There  must  be  a  stirring  campaign, 
with  plenty  of  cannon,  cheers,  flag-waving  and 
red  fire,  but  above  all  there  must  be  some  one 
to  shout  for.  Apathetic  quiet,  or  even  half 
hearted  noise,  meant  sure  defeat.  This  was  a 
contingency  too  serious  to  be  calmly  contem 
plated,  for  the  party  was  split,  and  was  only 
holding  itself  together  by  main  force  to  con- 

22 


ANOTHER   PARTY   CRISIS 

ceal  the  rift  from  the  public.  Defeat  at  this 
juncture  would  compel  the  abdication  of  the 
old  management  and  assure  the  installation  of 
a  new  one,  which  had  been  waiting  for  some 
time  for  such  a  chance.  There  was  a  general 
settlement  of  the  shrewder  party  lieutenants 
upon  Roosevelt  as  their  man,  and  they  made 
no  secret  of  it.  Platt,  Roosevelt's  opposite  pole 
in  sentiment  and  methods,  agreed  with  the  lieu 
tenants,  but  was  too  old  a  campaigner  to  adver 
tise  his  opinion  prematurely.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  fact  that  this  was  a  critical  year  for 
the  Republicans  had  stimulated  the  independ 
ents  to  put  up  a  candidate.  If  they  could  nom 
inate  an  ideal  man — one  of  the  right  character 
as  well  as  the  right  running  qualities — they 
could  drive  Platt  out  of  business  as  a  boss,  and 
this  was  the  end  toward  which  they  had  been 
working  as  long  as  most  of  them  had  been  in 
terested  in  politics  at  all.  Roosevelt  seemed  to 
be  the  very  man  they  were  seeking.  With  him 
as  a  candidate,  backed  by  evidence  of  a  large 
uprising  of  independent  voters  in  his  support 
throughout  the  State,  they  reasoned  that  the 
Platt  machine  would  be  forced  into  accepting 
him  also  as  the  Republican  candidate,  without 
pledges  of  any  sort  such  as  candidates  are  ex- 

23 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


pected  to  give  to  the  parties  who  nominate 
them;  that  the  Republican  indorsement  of  an 
independent  candidate  for  Governor  would 
leave  the  rest  of  the  Republican  ticket  with  no 
support  except  the  strict  party  vote;  that,  under 
these  conditions,  some  or  all  of  the  machine 
nominees  would  be  defeated  by  the  Democrats, 
to  the  further  demoralization  of  the  machine; 
and  that  as  Governor  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  have 
an  unhampered  initiative  and  a  fine  oppor 
tunity  to  break  up  certain  abuses  immemori- 
ally  entrenched  in  the  State  government  at 
Albany. 

Accounts  differ  as  to  what  took  place  at  the 
secret  negotiations  that  followed.  The  inde 
pendent  leaders  asserted,  in  an  address  made 
public  on  September  25,  1898,  that  Roosevelt 
gave  his  approval  to  their  plan,  with  the  one 
stipulation  that  if  it  "should  so  far  fail  that  he 
should  not  receive  the  Republican  nomination, 
he  must  then  be  free  to  accept  or  decline  the 
independent  nomination";  that  later  he  con 
ferred  with  them  about  the  technical  prelim 
inaries  to  launching  their  ticket;  but  that  on 
September  20  they  received  word  from  him 
that  he  found  himself  in  an  "impossible  posi 
tion"  with  respect  to  their  nomination  and  this 

24 


BREAK   WITH   INDEPENDENTS 

was  followed  by  a  letter  under  date  of  Septem 
ber  22  cutting  off  further  relations  with  their 
project. 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  version  of  the  chain  of  con 
ditions  leading  up  to  this  end  was  never  given, 
I  believe,  in  any  newspaper  interview  or  other 
authorized  statement,  but  was  freely  quoted 
among  his  friends  at  the  time.  It  was  to  the 
general  effect  that,  although  he  had  consented 
under  certain  contingencies  to  their  use  of  his 
name,  the  independents  themselves  had  insisted 
that  he  was  not  to  give,  and  could  not  give,  his 
acceptance  of  their  nomination  till  it  should  be 
formally  offered  to  him;  that  he  did  not  under 
stand,  when  the  subject  was  first  broached  to 
him,  that  such  consent  would  involve  his  deser 
tion  of  the  fortunes  of  any  candidates  who  might 
be  associated  with  him  on  the  Republican  State 
ticket;  that  a  controversy  having  arisen  as  to 
something  which  the  independent  platform 
should  contain,  the  independent  managers  sent 
him  a  written  version  of  their  original  interview 
with  him,  marking  in  the  margin  a  single  pass 
age  that  covered  the  point  at  issue;  that  in  his 
acknowledgment  of  receipt  he  indorsed  this 
marked  passage  as  containing  a  correct  state 
ment  of  the  facts,  but  that  his  indorsement  was 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


construed  by  his  correspondents  as  extending  to 
everything  in  the  enclosure;  and  that  when,  in 
the  light  of  later  utterances  by  the  independ 
ents,  he  grasped  their  plan  in  all  its  bearings, 
he  did  not  feel  that  he  could  afford  to  be  placed 
in  a  false  position  before  his  party  and  the 
voters  of  the  State,  and  made  haste  to  notify 
the  managers  accordingly.  His  letter  of  Sep 
tember  22,  already  mentioned,  put  the  gist  of 
the  matter  thus: 

•  "The  independent  nomination  has  not  been 
formally  offered  me,  but  I  am  now  receiving 
so  many  questions  as  to  my  intentions  in  the 
matter  that  I  am  not  willing  to  wait  longer. 

"My  name  will  probably  be  presented  to 
the  Republican  State  Convention  at  Saratoga 
on  the  27th.  If  I  am  nominated,  then  it  will 
be  on  the  same  ticket  with  those  who  are  named 
for  the  other  State  offices.  The  Republican 
party  will  also  have  congressional  and  legisla 
tive  tickets  in  the  field.  National  issues  are 
paramount  this  year;  very  few  municipal  offi 
cers  are  to  be  elected.  The  candidates  will  be 
my  associates  in  the  general  effort  to  elect  a 
Republican  Governor,  Republican  Congress 
men  to  support  President  McKinley  and  the 
cause  of  sound  money,  and  a  Legislature  which 

26 


CHANGING  CANDIDATES 


will  send  to  the  Senate  a  Republican  United 
States  Senator. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  I  would  not  be  acting 
in  good  faith  toward  my  fellow  candidates  if 
I  permitted  my  name  to  head  a  ticket  designed 
for  their  overthrow;  a  ticket,  moreover,  which 
can  not  be  put  up  because  of  objections  to  the 
character  or  fitness  of  any  candidates,  inasmuch 
as  no  candidates  have  yet  been  nominated. 

"I  write  this  with  great  reluctance,  for  I  wish 
the  support  of  every  independent.  If  elected 
Governor,  I  would  strive  to  serve  the  State  as  a 
whole,  and  to  serve  my  party  by  helping  to 
serve  the  State.  I  should  greatly  like  the  aid 
of  the  independents,  and  I  appreciate  the  im 
portance  of  the  independent  vote,  but  I  can 
not  accept  a  nomination  on  terms  that  would 
make  me  feel  disloyal  to  the  principles  for  which 
I  stand,  or  at  the  cost  of  acting  with  what  seems 
to  me  bad  faith  toward  my  associates." 

Although  two  or  three  conferences  with  the 
leaders  of  the  independent  movement  had  pre 
ceded  the  delivery  of  this  letter,  they  had  failed 
of  any  results  in  the  direction  of  conciliation, 
and  the  independents  went  on  and  put  a  sepa 
rate  ticket  in  the  field  containing  the  name  of 
Theodore  Bacon,  of  Rochester,  a  lawyer  of 

27 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


note,  for  Governor.  Some  embarrassment  and 
delay  were  occasioned  by  the  fact  that  the  ar 
rangement  for  nominating  Roosevelt  had  been 
by  a  form  prescribed  in  the  statutes  for  certain 
cases — a  petition  to  the  Secretary  of  State  with 
a  given  number  of  signatures  attached.  The 
independents'  petition,  circulated  all  over  the 
State,  had  been  signed  by  8,000  persons — a  great 
many  more  than  required  by  law.  But  these 
signatures  were  for  an  independent  nomination 
of  Roosevelt,  not  Bacon,  and  it  took  some  time 
and  trouble  to  provide  for  the  substitution. 
The  Republican  Convention,  meanwhile,  had 
carried  out  its  purpose  of  nominating  Roose 
velt;  there  was  nothing  else  for  it  to  do.  It 
had  done  so,  moreover,  without  exacting  a  sin 
gle  pledge  from  him,  and  this  was  all  that  the 
independents  had  aimed  at.  When  the  votes 
were  counted  on  election  night,  Roosevelt  was 
found  with  a  plurality  of  17,786  to  his  credit. 
It  was  not  a  very  big  plurality  for  New  York 
with  her  1,500,000  voters,  but,  like  Mercutio's 
wound,  'twould  serve. 

The  interesting  feature  of  the  count  was  that 
it  showed  Roosevelt  to  have  run  several  thou 
sand  votes  ahead  of  his  ticket.  Bacon's  total 
was  about  2,100.  This  number  presumptively 

28 


AN   UNPUBLISHED   LETTER 

measured  the  strength  of  the  independent  move 
ment  for  independence's  sole  sake.  The  other 
6,000  signers  of  the  independent  petition  had 
probably  been  attracted  to  it  by  the  hope  it  of 
fered  of  a  chance  to  vote  for  Roosevelt  whether 
the  Republicans  should  nominate  him  or  not; 
there  is  always  a  contingent  of  these  whether-or- 
noes  in  the  following  of  every  party  leader. 
When  he  accepted  the  Republican  nomination 
and  declined  the  independent,  they  went  with 
him  and  swelled  his  plurality.  They  would 
have  stuck  to  him  just  the  same  if  he  had  sud 
denly  blossomed  out  as  a  Prohibitionist  or  a 
Labor  candidate.  It  was  the  man,  not  the  poli 
tician,  they  were  supporting. 

Right  here  I  am  going  to  trench  on  half- 
forbidden  ground  far  enough  to  add  my  own 
particular  mite  to  the  literature  of  this  inci 
dent.  On  September  3,  1898,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
wrote  me  from  Montauk,  Long  Island,  where 
the  Rough  Riders  were  in  camp,  about  sundry 
matters  in  which  we  felt  a  joint  interest.  His 
letter  bore  evidences  of  hasty  composition  and 
bristled  with  interlineations,  which  are  indi 
cated  in  the  copy  here  given.  Referring  to 
some  comments  of  mine  on  the  talk  of  making 
him  Governor,  he  said : 

29 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


I  haven't  bothered  myself  a  particle  about  the  nomi 
nation,  and  have  no  idea  whether  it  will  be  made  or  not. 
In  the  first  place,  I  would  rather  have  led  this  regiment 
than  be  Governor  of  New  York  three  times  over.  In  the 
next  place,  while  on  the  whole  I  should  like  the  office  of 
Governor  and  would  not  shirk  it,  the  position  will  be  one 
of  such  extreme  difficulty,  and  I  shall  have  to  offend  so 
many  good  friends  of  mine,  that  I  should  breathe  a  sigh  of 
relief  were  it  not  offered  to  me. 

It  is  a  party  position.  I  should  be  one  of  the  big 
party  leaders  if  I  should  take  it.  This  means  that  I  should 

with 

have  to  treat  A  and  work  with  the  organization,  and  I 
should  see  and  consult  the  leaders — not  once,  but  continu- 

earnestly  on  all  important  questions 

ously — and  A  try  to  come  to  an  agreement  A  with  them ; 
and  of  course  the  mere  fact  of  my  doing  so  would  alienate 
many  of  my  friends  whose  friendship  I  value.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  we  come  to  a  matter  like  the  Canal,  or 
Life  Insurance,  or  anything  touching  the  Eighth  Com 
mandment  and  general  decency,  I  could  not  allow  any 

Consideration  of  party  to  Come  in.  And  this  would  alienate  those 
who,  if  not  friends,  were  supporters. 

As  for  taking  the  honor  without  conditions  or  not  at 
all,  I  do  not  believe  anybody  would  so  much  as  propose  to 
mention  conditions  to  me.  Certainly  I  would  not  enter 
tain  any  conditions  save  those  outlined  in  this  very  letter — 
that,  while  a  good  party  man  who  would  honestly  strive  to 

to  work  with  them, 

keep  in  with  the  leaders  of  the  party  organization,  A  and  to 
bring  the  Republican  party  into  a  better  shape  for  *.wo 

yet 

years  hence,  but  in  the  last  resort  I  should  have  to  be  my 
A 

30 


VALUE   AS   PROOF 


own  master,  and  when  a  question  of  honesty  or  dishonesty 

have  to 

arose  I  should  A  pay  no  further  heed  to  party  lines. 

Now,  as  I  say,  I  haven't  an  idea  about  the  nomina 
tion.  I  know  that  certain  of  the  politicians — some  for 

or  wholly  bad 

good  and  doubtless  some  for  less  good  A  reasons — are  work- 
some  I  am  glad 
ing  for  me,  and  that  there  are  A  (I  may  add,  A  to  say,  the 

worst)  seffl€  who  are  working  against  me.  I  should  say 
that  the  odds  are  against  my  nomination  ;  but  I  can  also 
say,  with  all  sincerity,  that  I  don't  care  in  the  least. 

When  the  date  of  this  letter  is  noted  in  con 
nection  with  its  contents,  and  when  we  read 
it  literally  between  the  lines,  using  the  auto 
graphic  amendments  as  an  index  to  the  work 
ing  of  the  writer's  mind,  its  importance  will 
appear.  For  it  was  written  spontaneously  in 
the  confidence  of  friendship,  at  a  time  when 
nothing  was  further  from  the  thought  of  either 
its  author  or  its  recipient  than  that  it  would 
ever  be  valuable  as  a  means  of  refuting  unjust 
insinuations. 


CHAPTER   III 

KNIGHT  ERRANT  OF  CIVIL-SERVICE  REFORM 

How  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  Commissioner — Publicity  for  the 
merit  system — Bringing  up  the  Southern  quotas — Tilts  with 
Congress — Competitive  examinations  and  the  police. 

MR.  ROOSEVELT'S  decision  to  remain  a  Re 
publican  after  Elaine's  nomination  for  the  presi 
dency  brought  about,  as  we  have  seen,  a  tem 
porary  estrangement  between  him  and  a  num 
ber  of  well-known  men  with  whom  he  had 
worked  in  the  past  for  civil-service  reform. 
They  lost  no  opportunity  of  making  plain  to 
the  public  the  fact  of  the  separation,  and  of 
the  critical  distance  at  which  they  should 
thenceforward  scrutinize  his  conduct  in  public 
affairs.  An  insincere  man  might  have  seized 
such  a  state  of  armed  truce  as  an  excuse  for 
dropping  aggressive  tactics  in  the  reform  propa 
ganda,  and  leaving  his  old  associates  to  carry 
this  on  alone  as  best  they  could;  but,  so  far 
from  that,  he  became  a  more  determined  fighter 
than  ever,  and  took  especial  pains  to  show  his 

32 


CIVIL   SERVICE   COMMISSIONER 

contempt  for  party  lines  when  it  came  to  ad 
ministering  the  purely  business  branches  of  the 
governmental  machine. 

His  appointment  in  1889  as  Civil-Service 
Commissioner,  though  fraught  with  conse 
quences  of  such  importance  to  his  future,  was 
more  a  happy  accident  than  anything  else. 
When  the  Harrison  administration  began  he 
was  taking  great  interest  in  foreign  affairs, 
and  aspired  to  be  Assistant  Secretary  of  State. 
Secretary  Elaine,  however,  had  recognized  in 
him  a  certain  impatience  of  restraint  which 
boded  danger  for  their  relations  as  chief  and 
subordinate.  So  the  assistant  secretaryship  was 
given  to  William  F.  Wharton  of  Massachu 
setts,  a  more  discreet  young  man,  and  to  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  tendered  instead  a  position  on 
the  Civil-Service  Commission.  Many  of  his 
friends  were  surprised  at  his  acceptance  of  the 
place,  which  seemed  too  narrow  for  his  powers. 
Up  to  that  time  the  commission  had  been  re 
garded  as  a  rather  insignificant  wheel  in  the 
administrative  machine.  Dorman  B.  Eaton 
of  New  York,  its  president,  was  the  only  man 
of  national  reputation  who  had  had  any  con 
nection  with  it  during  the  six  years  of  its  his 
tory,  and  his  interest  was  wholly  patriotic  and 

33 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


philanthropic.  He  had  devoted  several  years 
unselfishly  to  the  study  of  the  European  sys 
tems  and  the  siege  of  Congress,  and  deserved 
almost  the  sole  credit  for  finally  procuring  the 
enactment  of  the  organic  legislation.  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  who  had  been  his  enthusiastic  col 
league  in  the  National  Civil-Service  Reform 
League,  was  the  author  of  the  bill  which  passed 
the  Legislature  of  New  York  during  Governor 
Cleveland's  administration,  about  simultane 
ously  with  the  Federal  act. 

Mr.  Eaton,  a  man  of  cautious  temperament, 
had  endeavored  to  efface  himself  while  he  re 
mained  in  office.  He  kept  out  of  the  way  of 
the  newspapers,  and  averted  as  far  as  possible 
all  unnecessary  publicity  as  to  the  acts  of  the 
commission.  He  felt  that  the  merit  system  was 
still  novel  in  the  United  States,  while  the  old 
spoils  interests  were  so  well  entrenched  that 
every  paragraph  of  news  or  comment  in  the  press 
was  more  liable  to  damage  the  reform  by  stimu 
lating  its  foes  to  fresh  endeavor  than  to  help 
it  by  encouraging  its  friends.  It  was  natural, 
therefore,  for  many  superficial  observers  to 
assume  that  the  policy  of  secretiveness  would 
continue  indefinitely,  and  that  any  prominent 
man  who  could  be  induced  to  take  a  place  on 

34 


PUBLICITY   FOR   MERIT   SYSTEM 

the  commission  would  practically  disappear 
from  public  view  for  the  period  of  his  service. 

Whoever  expected  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  remain 
long  hidden  in  any  position,  however  insignifi 
cant,  did  not  know  the  man.  He  had  grown 
up  in  the  sunlight  and  fresh  air.  Publicity 
had  no  terrors  for  him.  He  had  always  spoken 
his  mind  when  and  where  he  pleased.  He 
gloried  in  a  fight  for  any  cause  he  had  espoused, 
and  his  theory  was  that  anything  worth  having 
was  not  too  dear  at  the  price  of  a  few  hard 
knocks — provided  always  that  he  were  in  a 
situation  to  give  back  all  he  took,  with  interest. 

Hence  it  came  about  that  on  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  entrance  into  it  the  Civil-Service  Com 
mission,  for  the  first  time  since  its  foundation, 
threw  open  its  office  doors  freely  to  all  comers. 
This  policy  disarmed  a  part  of  the  criticism 
which  had  formerly  been  rife,  founded  on  the 
theory  that  there  was  some  mystery  connected 
with  its  workings.  No  member  of  Congress 
thereafter  ventured  a  mistaken  comment  on  the 
merit  system,  without  receiving  by  the  next  mail 
a  cordial  invitation  to  come  down  to  headquar 
ters  and  explore  the  whole  business  to  his  heart's 
content.  No  editorial  mention  of  the  commis 
sion  or  its  work  passed  unheeded  if  it  found  its 

35 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


way  to  headquarters,  and  where  the  writer  ap 
peared  to  have  been  honestly  misled  on  any 
point  he  was  promptly  set  right.  The  news 
paper  correspondents  in  Washington  were 
made  welcome,  and  furnished  with  any  in 
formation  that  could  properly  be  given  out. 
An  effort  was  made  to  establish  more  than 
purely  formal  relations  between  the  heads  of 
departments  and  the  commissioners,  and  to  con 
vince  the  former  that  the  spirit  of  the  commis 
sion  was  cooperative  rather  than  antipathetic. 
All  the  resources  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  agile  wit 
were  taxed  not  only  to  meet  new  difficulties  as 
they  arose,  but  to  devise  means  for  extending 
the  scope  of  the  commission's  usefulness  and 
win  popular  confidence  in  the  democratic  and 
American  character  of  the  merit  system. 

One  day  a  paragraph  appeared  somewhere 
in  the  press  which  showed  that  there  still  lin 
gered  in  the  public  mind  a  notion  that  only 
Republicans  need  try  to  enter  the  Government 
service  during  a  Republican  administration. 
Like  a  flash  came  Mr.  Roosevelt's  response. 
He  sent  out  invitations  to  all  the  representa 
tives  of  Southern  newspapers  in  Washington  to 
meet  him  at  his  office  on  a  certain  afternoon. 

"Now,  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "I  am  going 
36 


BRINGING   UP   SOUTHERN   QUOTAS 

to  ask  you  to  help  me  dispel  this  illusion,  and 
at  the  same  time  aid  your  own  people.  I  have 
been  looking  over  the  list  of  appointments  from 
our  registers,  and,  whereas  the  Northern  and 
Western  States  have  their  quotas  full  and  some 
of  them  overflowing,  the  South  is  short  of  its 
share.  I  wish  each  of  you  would  publish  in 
the  most  emphatic  manner  the  statement  that 
it  is  my  desire  that  the  young  men  of  the  South 
should  come  forward,  irrespective  of  politics, 
and  take  our  examinations.  I  assume,  on  gen 
eral  principles,  that  most  of  your  educated 
young  men  are  Democrats;  but  you  may  give 
them  my  absolute  guaranty  that  they  will  re 
ceive  the  same  consideration  in  every  respect 
as  the  young  men  in  other  parts  of  the  country, 
that  no  one  will  inquire  what  their  politics  are, 
and  that  they  will  be  appointed  according  to 
their  deserts  and  in  the  regular  order  of  ap 
portionment.  This  is  an  institution  not  for  Re 
publicans,  and  not  for  Democrats,  but  for  the 
whole  American  people.  It  belongs  to  them, 
and  will  be  administered,  as  long  as  I  stay  here, 
in  their  interest  without  discrimination." 

The  effect  was  magical.  The  examinations 
on  the  Southern  routes  began  to  swarm  with 
bright  young  fellows,  to  whom,  by  the  then 

37 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


modest  standards  of  the  South,  a  salary  of  $1,200 
was  riches. 

In  spite  of  every  effort,  there  were  many 
members  of  Congress  who  refused  either  to  take 
for  granted  that  the  system  was  good  and  hon 
estly  handled  or  to  come  and  see  for  themselves. 
These  stubborn  gentry,  and  a  few  others  who 
wanted  to  carry  water  on  both  shoulders,  would 
regularly,  once  a  session,  go  through  a  stereo 
typed  comedy  in  passing  the  civil-service  appro 
priation.  The  great  budget  bills  are  consid 
ered,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  first  in 
committee  of  the  whole,  and  then  reported  to 
the  House  and  passed.  In  committee  of  the 
whole  a  vote  is  subject  to  a  division  and  a  count 
of  heads,  but  the  roll  is  never  called.  So,  when 
the  civil-service  appropriation  would  come  up, 
there  would  always  be  a  division,  and  a  majority 
would  appear  in  favor  of  striking  out  the  en 
tire  grant  and  thereby  starving  the  commission 
to  death;  but  when  the  bill  was  reported  to  the 
House  the  friends  of  the  merit  system  would 
demand  a  roll-call,  and  then  a  score  or  two  of 
the  very  members  who  had  helped  to  make  a 
majority  against  the  appropriation  in  committee 
would  scuttle  for  the  other  side  and  have  their 
names  recorded  as  voting  in  its  favor.  Their 

38 


TILTS   WITH   CONGRESS 


first  demonstration  would  usually  be  made  to 
pique  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  had  once  occupied 
a  seat  in  the  gallery  when  the  committee  debate 
was  in  progress;  their  second  would  be  for  the 
benefit  of  those  of  their  constituents  who  were 
educated  and  intelligent  enough  to  read  the 
Congressional  Record  and  the  newspapers. 

Once  the  opponents  of  the  merit  system  in 
Congress  carried  their  horse-play  a  little  too 
far,  and,  though  not  striking  out  the  total  grant, 
refused  to  give  the  commission  all  the  money 
it  needed  for  the  expense  of  conducting  exam 
inations.  A  meek  man  would  have  bowed  to 
this  snub.  Not  so  Mr.  Roosevelt.  He  sent  for 
the  schedule  of  examination  routes  as  laid  out, 
and  prepared  a  revised  version,  chopping  oft 
with  one  blow  the  districts  represented  by  the 
men  who  had  refused  to  vote  the  necessary 
money.  He  then  informed  the  leading  news 
paper  correspondents  of  what  had  been  done, 
so  as  to  have  it  well  advertised.  He  coupled 
with  the  news  an  explanation  that,  as  long  as 
the  list  must  be  cut  down  to  keep  it  within  the 
amount  appropriated  for  expenses,  and  some 
districts  had  to  be  sacrificed,  it  was  only  com 
mon  justice  that  those  members  who  had  voted 
against  the  necessary  grant  should  be  given  the 

39 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


full  benefit  of  the  restriction  they  had  them 
selves  imposed.  There  was  loud  chatter  about 
"impeachment"  and  " removal,"  and  what-not, 
when  this  news  reached  the  ears  of  the  victims, 
but  the  bold  stroke  carried  the  day,  and  the 
commission  got  its  money  after  that. 

When  a  member  of  either  chamber  per 
sisted  in  criticizing  the  commission  unfairly 
after  an  invitation  to  inspect  its  methods  and 
satisfy  himself,  he  was  apt  to  hear  from  Mr. 
Roosevelt  in  another  way;  and  it  made  no 
difference  what  the  offender's  party  affiliations 
or  personal  importance  might  be.  Mr.  Gor 
man,  of  Maryland,  attacking  the  merit  system 
one  day  in  the  Senate,  told  a  story  of  "a  bright 
young  man  in  the  city  of  Baltimore,  an  appli 
cant  for  the  position  of  letter-carrier,"  who  was 
required  on  his  examination  to  tell  "the  most 
direct  route  from  Baltimore  to  Japan,"  and  on 
his  failure  to  answer  this  and  some  other  equally 
unpractical  questions  was  rejected.  On  the  day 
the  speech  was  published  Mr.  Roosevelt  sent 
the  Senator  a  polite  written  request  for  the  date 
and  place  of  the  examination,  and  also  an  in 
vitation  to  inspect  all  the  examination  papers 
for  letter-carriers  and  find  the  obnoxious  ques 
tion  if  it  had  ever  been  asked.  In  this  instance, 

40 


AN   ARCADIAN   SENATOR 

Mr.  Gorman  explained  afterward  to  his  col 
leagues  in  the  Senate,  "I  did  what  I  do  in  the 
case  of  all  interferences  by  impudent  people 
who  without  warrant  ask  me  about  the  dis 
charge  of  my  duty:  I  took  no  notice  of  it." 
That  brought  out  from  Mr.  Roosevelt  a  public 
letter,  closing  in  this  characteristic  style: 

"High-minded,  sensitive  Mr.  Gorman! 
Clinging,  trustful  Mr.  Gorman!  Nothing 
could  shake  his  belief  in  that  'bright  young 
man.'  Apparently,  he  did  not  even  yet  try  to 
find  out  his  name — if  he  had  a  name;  in  fact, 
his  name,  like  everything  else  about  him,  re 
mains  to  this  day  wrapped  in  the  Stygian  mantle 
of  an  abysmal  mystery.  Still  less  has  Mr.  Gor 
man  tried  to  verify  the  statements  made  to  him. 
It  is  enough  for  him  that  they  were  made.  No 
harsh  suspicion,  no  stern  demand  for  evidence 
or  proof,  appeals  to  his  artless  and  unspoiled 
soul.  He  believes  whatever  he  is  told,  even 
when  he  has  forgotten  the  name  of  the  teller,  or 
never  knew  it.  It  would  indeed  be  difficult  to 
find  an  instance  of  a  more  abiding  confidence 
in  human  nature — even  in  anonymous  human 
nature.  And  this  is  the  end  of  the  tale  of 
Arcadian  Mr.  Gorman  and  his  elusive  friend, 
the  bright  young  man  without  a  name!" 

41 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


James  S.  Clarkson,  the  present  surveyor  of 
the  Port  of  New  York,  was  formerly  an  Assist 
ant  Postmaster-General,  having  for  one  of  his 
duties  the  appointment  and  dismissal  of  fourth- 
class  postmasters.  As  joint  members  of  the  ad 
ministration  under  President  Harrison,  he  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  had  several  clashes  while  this 
connection  lasted,  having  been  trained  in  di 
verse  schools  of  ethics  as  regarded  the  civil 
service.  Mr.  Clarkson,  when  he  had  retired 
from  office,  contributed  an  article  to  the  North 
American  Review  charging  the  commission 
with  being  more  unfriendly  to  the  Republican 
party  under  Harrison  than  it  had  been  under 
Cleveland,  denouncing  the  mugwumps  as  being 
insincere  and  merely  Democrats  in  disguise, 
and  insisting  on  the  right  of  the  Republicans 
when  in  power  to  fill  the  offices  with  persons 
of  their  own  political  faith.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in 
a  speech  delivered  at  St.  Louis  soon  after  the 
article  appeared,  met  these  complaints  in  a 
fashion  all  his  own. 

"Mr.  Clarkson,"  said  he,  "is  suffering  un 
der  a  confusion  of  ideas.  He  is  mixing  him 
self  and  his  friends  with  the  Republican  party. 
The  Civil-Service  Commission  is  most  un 
doubtedly  hostile  to  Mr.  Clarkson  and  the  idea 

42 


REBUKING  A   SPOILSMAN 

which  Mr.  Clarkson  represents.  We  should 
fail  in  our  duty  if  we  were  not.  We  can  no 
more  retain  the  good-will  of  the  spoilsmen  than 
a  policeman  who  does  his  duty  can  retain  the 
good-will  of  the  lawbreaker. 

"Mr.  Clarkson  says  that  the  Democratic 
party  purchased  the  mugwump  edifice.  I  do 
not  believe  Mr.  Clarkson  means  that.  It  is 
just  as  foolish  to  make  that  statement  as  it  would 
be  to  make  the  statement  that  the  Democratic 
party  purchased  Mr.  Clarkson  to  write  his 
article,  which  is  more  fitted  to  do  damage  to 
the  Republican  party  than  any  possible  mug 
wump  editorial. 

"He  represents  civil-service  reformers  as 
saying  that  office-holding  does  not  concern  the 
people.  On  the  contrary,  we  say  that  it  does 
concern  the  people,  and  we  take  issue  with  Mr. 
Clarkson  and  his  friends,  who  insist  that  it 
merely  concerns  the  one  small  and  not  very 
clean  caste  of  office-seekers  and  office-holders. 

"He  says  that  he  and  his  friends  believe  in 
Republican  officers  under  Republican  admin 
istrations.  If  this  is  not  right,  he  says,  then 
all  political  parties  in  America  ought  to  dis 
band.  In  other  words,  he  and  his  friends  be 
lieve  that  if  they  can  not  get  the  offices  the  party 

43 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ought  to  disband.  That  is  to  say,  he  and  his 
friends  believe  that  they  ought  to  be  paid  for 
supporting  the  party.  That  sounds  like  a  harsh 
way  of  putting  it,  but  it  is  a  perfectly  just  way. 
There  is  a  certain  difference  between  being  paid 
with  an  office  and  being  paid  with  money,  ex 
actly  as  there  is  a  certain  difference  between  the 
savagery  of  an  Ashantee  and  that  of  a  Hotten 
tot,  but  it  is  small  in  amount." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  belief  in  the  reformed  civil- 
service  system  was  never  the  blind  faith  of  a 
faddist,  but  always  tempered  with  practical 
sense.  Those  of  us  who  were  watching  his 
career  as  Police  Commissioner  recall  very  dis 
tinctly  the  groan  that  went  up  from  many  life 
long  civil-service  reformers  when  the  news 
papers  revealed  the  fact  that  he  had  taken  his 
stand  against  a  general  competitive  examina 
tion  for  promotion  on  the  police  force,  and 
had  caused  a  split  in  the  board  by  his  unex 
pected  course.  One  of  his  colleagues  drew  his 
attention  to  the  law,  which  provided  that  pro 
motions  must  be  made  through  considerations 
of  seniority,  merit,  and  competitive  examina 
tion.  Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not  dispute  this;  but 
he  defied  his  critic  to  show  him  anything  in 
the  law  which  threw  the  examinations  open  to 

44 


A   COMMON-SENSE  VIEW 


everybody,  or  forbade  the  board  to  pick  out 
the  men  they  wished  to  enter  the  competition. 
It  took  some  time  to  settle  that  question,  but 
when  it  was  settled  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  carried 
his  point. 

The  commissioner's  critics,  of  course,  seized 
upon  this  as  an  evidence  that  he  had  gone  over 
to  the  enemy,  and  become  a  believer  in  favorit 
ism  on  the  police  force  as  elsewhere.  It  was 
a  bold  position  for  a  man  to  take  when  count 
ing  on  the  support  of  an  element  in  the  com 
munity  who  had  always  insisted  upon  free 
and  open  competitive  examinations  as  the  one 
magical  test  of  fitness  for  public  office  and  em 
ployment.  Most  of  these  persons,  Mr.  Roose 
velt  realized,  would  misunderstand  his  attitude, 
but  he  was  sure  that  if  they  were  capable  of 
understanding  it  they  would  approve  it.  He 
was  as  stanch  a  believer  as  ever  in  unrestricted 
competition  in  its  proper  place.  But  he  was 
able  to  keep  in  mind  what  a  mere  faddist  rarely 
or  never  does,  the  fact  that  any  civil-service  ex 
amination  is  at  best  only  a  screen  to  keep  out 
the  unfit,  not  a  mysterious  instrument  of  selec 
tion  like  a  divining-rod;  that  it  had  been  sub 
stituted  for  free  choice  by  the  appointing  officer, 
not  because  it  possessed  any  sacred  virtue  of 

45 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


its  own,  but  because  it  offered  the  only  widely 
available  refuge  from  a  reign  of  political  spoils 
and  personal  favoritism;  and  that  the  sole 
reason  the  reformers  had  made  open  competi 
tion  the  general  rule  was  to  give  as  democratic 
a  character  as  possible  to  the  merit  system. 

In  the  case  of  the  police  force  some  con 
siderations  seemed  worthy  of  weight,  which  did 
not  apply  everywhere  else.  For  an  original 
appointment  as  patrolman  rigid  examinations 
were  conducted  and  everybody  was  welcome 
to  compete;  the  larger  the  number  and  variety 
of  candidates  the  better  pleased  was  the  board. 
But  when  it  came  to  promoting  men  who  had 
already  had  an  opportunity  of  showing  what 
was  in  them,  the  use  they  had  made  of  their 
opportunity  was  the  first  thing  to  be  looked 
into.  The  primal  demand  was  for  courage- 
personal  prowess.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
a  policeman  might  better  be  without  legs  to 
chase  a  ruffian  than  without  the  courage  to 
tackle  him  when  caught.  After  the  heroes  had 
been  picked  out,  the  board  looked  for  the  sober, 
steady,  orderly,  and  intelligent  men  whom  cir 
cumstances  had  never  placed  in  a  position  to 
try  their  pluck.  Although  justice  demanded 
that  these  men  should  not  be  forever  kept  back 


DIFFICULTIES   OF   CHOICE 

by  conditions  beyond  their  control,  there  were 
more  misgivings  about  them  than  about  the  men 
who  had  already  proved  their  quality.  Sup 
pose  that  a  man  had  been  clothed  with  larger 
responsibilities  on  the  strength  of  his  record 
for  sobriety  and  intelligence,  but  when  sub 
jected  to  his  first  real  ordeal  he  went  down  be 
fore  it! 

Still,  such  cases  did  not  present  half  so 
much  difficulty  of  choice  as  a  mixed  class  in 
which  the  physical  and  moral  lines  did  not  run 
parallel.  Here  and  there  would  be  a  man 
whose  daring  and  resourcefulness  had  never 
been  challenged  in  vain,  but  whose  shortcom 
ings  in  some  other  respects  were  terribly  trying. 
Recklessness  of  discipline,  uncertain  habits,  or 
a  past  record  which,  however  well  retrieved, 
made  constant  watchfulness  advisable,  might 
lie  in  the  opposite  scale  to  splendid  strength 
and  bravery.  In  such  instances  the  question 
asked  was  whether  the  man's  shortcomings  were 
so  serious  that  he  could  not  be  trusted.  If  so, 
he  was  ruled  out;  if  not,  he  was  given  a  fresh 
chance  to  show  his  mettle.  Then  came  the 
competitive  examination,  last  of  all,  to  mark 
the  order  in  which  the  candidates  should  be 
promoted. 

5  47 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


If  competitive  examinations  of  the  scholastic 
sort  had  held  the  place  in  the  tests  for  original 
selection  or  promotion  of  New  York  police 
men  that  most  of  the  less  practical  friends  of 
the  merit  system  would  have  assigned  them, 
there  would  have  been  some  amusing  but  rather 
pitiful  results;  for  the  range  of  accomplish 
ments  in  book-learning,  and  even  of  knowledge 
of  current  history  and  affairs,  was  not  wide 
among  the  men  of  brawn  and  courage.  One 
of  the  tests  put  to  a  class  of  applicants  was, 
"Give  a  brief  statement  of  the  life  of  Abraham 
Lincoln."  Ten  candidates  described  the  great 
emancipator  as  the  President  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy;  one  said  that  he  was  assassinated 
by  Thomas  Jefferson,  two  by  Jefferson  Davis, 
one  by  Garfield,  three  by  Guiteau,  and  one  by 
Ballington  Booth. 

Another  question  was,  "Who  is  the  chief 
officer  of  the  United  States?"  One  candidate 
answered  "Parkhurst,"  one  "Croker,"  and  two 
"Roosevelt." 

A  third  test,  "Name  some  of  the  States  in 
the  Southern  Confederacy,"  brought  out  a  geo 
graphical  conglomerate  like  "Montana,  Idaho, 
Wyoming,  Utah,  Nevada."  Of  the  answers  to 
a  request  to  "Name  five  of  the  New  England 


A   TRIAL   OF  COURAGE 


States,"  one  read,  "New  York,  Albany,  Phila 
delphia,  Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware";  another, 
"England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  Wales,  and 
Cork";  while  still  another  duplicated  this  last 
except  for  substituting  Belfast  for  Cork. 

Yet  two  of  the  men  who  made  Lincoln 
President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  getting 
in  by  a  close  shave  on  their  other  qualifications, 
proved  among  the  best  officers  on  the  force. 
Valuable  as  examinations  are  as  means  of  weed 
ing  out  the  hopeless  cases,  and  scrupulously  as 
the  law  requiring  them  should  be  guarded 
against  violation  or  neglect,  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
theory  has  always  been  that  they  are  of  more 
real  importance  to  the  public  service  in  testing 
a  candidate's  intelligence  than  in  discovering 
his  erudition.  No  scholastic  examination — no 
paper  test  of  any  sort — would  have  given  his 
proper  rank  as  a  subject  for  promotion  to  one 
patrolman  who  was  on  the  force  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  Police  Commissioner.  One 
night,  while  on  his  uptown  beat,  this  officer  saw 
a  man  leap  out  of  the  window  of  a  house  and 
run  down  the  street.  He  promptly  gave  chase. 
The  man  was  a  burglar,  and  armed.  The 
policeman,  however,  dashed  after  him  alone, 
and  was  overtaking  him  when  they  came  to  the 

49 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


New  York  Central  Railroad  tunnel.  Through 
one  of  the  big  openings  in  the  top  of  the  tunnel 
the  burglar  plunged.  It  was  a  long  leap,  and 
there  was  danger  from  the  trains  underneath,  but 
a  man  whose  liberty  is  at  stake  will  take  a  heavy 
risk.  The  patrolman  was  following  close.  He 
was  inspired  by  nothing  but  duty.  His  liberty 
was  not  at  stake,  and  he  could  not  have  been 
punished  or  reprimanded  for  failing  to  risk  his 
neck  by  jumping  into  the  tunnel.  Neverthe 
less,  jump  he  did.  The  burglar  had  the  wind 
knocked  out  of  him  by  the  jump.  The  patrol 
man,  more  skilful  or  lucky  in  jumping,  got  off 
scot-free,  seized  the  prisoner,  brought  him  in, 
and  thereby  earned  his  promotion. 

The  stand  taken  by  so  eminent  a  champion 
of  the  merit  system  against  the  conventional 
tests  of  fitness,  where  these  tests  were  themselves 
unfit,  naturally  startled  many  good  persons. 
Perhaps  in  the  same  category  we  might  place 
the  shock  Mr.  Roosevelt  gave  his  more  sedate 
associates  in  the  civil-service-reform  movement 
when  he  declared,  in  1890,  his  belief  that  the 
corps  of  inspectors  of  customs  on  the  Texas 
border  might  very  well  be  recruited  from  the 
line-riders  in  the  cattle  country,  by  giving  a 
large  weight  to  athletic  tests.  To  fill  such  a 

50 


ATHLETIC   TESTS 


position  most  acceptably  a  man  ought  to  know 
brands,  be  a  first-rate  horseman,  and  a  good 
pistol-shot  with  both  hands.  If  he  were  thor 
oughly  qualified  in  these  particulars,  knew 
enough  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  to 
make  an  intelligible  report,  and  could  furnish 
substantial  recommendations  as  to  character, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  thought  that  he  ought  to  make 
a  pretty  good  inspector. 

The  idea,  at  the  time  it  was  first  broached, 
was  made  the  subject  for  not  a  little  censure  as 
frivolous  and  undignified;  its  author  was  criti 
cized  for  letting  his  flippant  humor  run  away 
with  his  sense  of  his  serious  obligations  as  ad 
viser  to  the  President  in  setting  the  competitive 
merit  system  on  its  feet;  and  the  newspaper 
paragraphers  all  over  the  country  took  merry 
shies  at  it.  Yet  after  the  lapse  of  only  a  few 
years  we  find  an  announcement  published  un 
der  the  auspices  of  the  Civil-Service  Commis 
sion  in  a  Southwestern  journal,  that  "an  exam 
ination  will  be  held  in  Brownsville,  Texas,  for 
the  position  of  mounted  inspector  in  the  cus 
toms  district  of  Brazos  de  Santiago,  with  head 
quarters  at  Brownsville.  The  examination  will 
be  of  a  light  educational  character,  but  appli 
cants  will  be  required  to  file  special  vouchers 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


showing  their  knowledge  of  the  Mexican  lan 
guage  and  of  the  country  embraced  in  the  dis 
trict,  as  well  as  their  ability  to  read  brands  and 
their  experience  in  horsemanship  and  marks 
manship." 


CHAPTER    IV 

A    FEW    FRIENDS 

Premature  alarm  of  the  conservatives — Senator  Lodge's  relations 
with  the  President — Other  men  who  have  helped — "  My 
regiment" — Familiarity  and  faith — The  case  of  Ben  Daniels. 

ON  the  day  of  President  McKinley's  death 
I  met  a  number  of  gentlemen  interested  in  the 
foreign  relations  of  the  United  States.  One 
question  was  on  every  lip :  "Will  not  Senator 
Lodge  be  Secretary  of  State  in  President  Roose 
velt's  Cabinet?" 

They  were  evidently  much  alarmed.  Mr. 
Lodge's  premiership,  they  reasoned,  would 
mean  an  aggressive  foreign  policy,  the  proba 
bility  of  another  war  before  long  with  either 
Germany  or  England,  and  the  acquisition  of 
additional  territory  whenever  and  wherever 
possible  by  conquest.  There  was  a  general 
chorus  of  surprise  when  I  reassured  them  by 
saying  that  Mr.  Lodge  would  not  become  Sec 
retary  of  State. 

"You  are  perfectly  certain  of  that?"  they 

S3 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


asked,  adding,  in  a  tone  of  misgiving,  "Every 
Cabinet  forecast  we  have  seen  puts  Lodge  in 
the  first  place." 

"You  may  take  comfort  from  two  facts,"  I 
answered:  "first,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  not 
bully,  coax,  or  drag  Mr.  Lodge  out  of  the  seat 
once  filled  by  Daniel  Webster  and  Charles  Sum- 
ner  in  the  United  States  Senate;  and,  second, 
that  he  would  not  try  to.  With  both  parties 
satisfied  with  the  existing  arrangement,  it  is 
hard  to  find  the  incentive  for  change." 

Although  from  what  I  knew  of  both  Presi 
dent  and  Senator  I  felt  perfectly  sure  of  my 
ground,  I  was  unaware  at  that  moment  of  a 
telegram  sent  to  the  new  President  by  Mr. 
Lodge — the  first  advice  offered  by  an  old  friend 
— that  he  should  leave  the  McKinley  program 
undisturbed,  but,  above  all,  do  nothing  which 
could  cause  the  retirement  of  Secretary  Hay. 
My  interrogators  had  simply  made  the  common 
mistake  of  supposing  that  personal  friendship, 
or  a  sympathetic  view  of  great  questions,  would 
be  the  decisive  consideration  in  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  mind  when  selecting  men  for  office,  and 
that  the  closeness  of  the  tie  would  be  the 
measure  of  the  dignity  conferred.  As  a  mat 
ter  of  fact,  no  public  man  of  our  time  has  done 

54 


CLASSIFYING    FRIENDSHIPS 

fewer  of  the  things  he  was  expected  to  do  in 
this  line,  or  more  of  the  things  which  no  one 
believed  he  would  do.  He  has  his  own  gen 
eral  rules  covering  such  matters,  but  they  are 
not  the  rules  most  men  in  his  position  would 
lay  down.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  formulate 
them  except  in  a  rough  way,  but  I  believe  that 
I  can  convey  to  the  reader  at  least  the  skeleton 
of  their  philosophy. 

At  the  outset  I  should  divide  his  friends 
into  two  classes :  those  whose  claim  upon  his 
regard  has  grown  out  of  a  natural  affinity  or 
long  and  pleasant  social  contact,  and  those 
whose  place  in  his  heart  has  been  won  by  serv 
ice  in  emergencies.  Here  and  there  we  might 
find  the  classes  merged  in  some  individual,  but 
not  often.  Perhaps  the  most  notable  example 
of  such  merger  is  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.  Lodge 
was  an  instructor  at  Harvard  while  Roosevelt 
was  a  student  there,  and  many  persons  have 
drawn  from  that  fact  the  inference  that  their 
friendship  began  in  Cambridge.  Strange  to 
say,  the  very  reverse  is  the  case.  Lodge  scarcely 
knew  Roosevelt  while  they  were  together  at  the 
university;  and  Roosevelt,  though  interested  in 
history,  shunned  Lodge's  classes  and  entertained 
a  prejudice  against  the  instructor  because  Lodge 

55 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


had  .a  severer  system  of  marking  than  he  con 
sidered  fair.  It  was  not  till  both  became  inter 
ested  in  the  Edmunds  movement  and  had  occa 
sion  to  consult  on  means  for  bringing  New 
York  and  Massachusetts  together  for  the  sup 
port  of  their  chosen  candidate,  that  they  became 
acquainted.  As  their  preliminary  campaign 
advanced  they  grew  friendly,  and  then  intimate. 
At  every  stage  of  Roosevelt's  career  since 
that  day  Lodge  has  been  at  his  side  to  assist  in 
procuring  for  him  the  object  of  his  ambition. 
When  he  was  Civil-Service  Commissioner 
Lodge  led  the  fight  yearly  in  Congress  in  favor 
of  a  larger  scope  for  the  commission's  activities 
and  more  money  to  do  business  with.  When  the 
spoilsmen  would  make  a  raid  upon  the  merit 
system  on  the  floor,  Lodge  would  be  there,  at 
the  head  of  the  defensive  force,  to  receive  the 
brunt  of  the  attack.  When  work  had  to  be  done 
in  the  committees  in  advance  of  a  contemplated 
onslaught,  it  was  Lodge  who  undertook  the 
diplomatic  task.  When  a  bill  was  so  drawn  as 
to  hide  a  job  of  patronage  and  thereby  rob  the 
commission  of  a  part  of  its  prerogative,  it  was 
Lodge  who  planted  himself  in  the  path  of  the 
measure  till  it  had  been  revised  or  withdrawn. 
When  Roosevelt  wished  to  be  Assistant  Secre- 

56 


WHEN  JUDGMENTS   CLASH 

tary  of  the  Navy,  Lodge  camped  at  the  White 
House  till  the  President  sent  his  friend's  name 
to  the  Senate.  One  of  the  rare  occasions  where 
Lodge  and  Roosevelt  differed  as  to  what  was 
best  for  the  latter's  fortunes  was  at  the  Repub 
lican  National  Convention  of  1900.  Roosevelt 
was  bound  not  to  take  the  vice-presidency, 
where  he  was  sure  he  would  be  "shelved"  for 
four  years;  Lodge  insisted  that  he  should  take 
it,  because  there  was  no  such  thing  as  shelving 
a  man  like  him.  The  sequel  justified  the  Sen 
ator's  judgment,  though  in  a  manner  neither 
could  then  foresee. 

On  other  questions  they  often  differ.  The 
President  would  sacrifice  his  right  arm  for  the 
Senator,  but  sacrificing  a  conviction  is  another 
matter:  his  heart  may  be  his  friend's,  but  his 
ideas  are  his  own.  "I  am  going  to  remove 
M to-morrow,"  he  said  to  me  one  day,  re 
ferring  to  an  office-holder  of  whose  misconduct 
he  was  satisfied,  though  without  irrefutable  evi 
dence.  "Cabot  has  been  here  all  the  afternoon 
pleading  with  me  to  spare  the  fellow,  whom  he 
believes  to  be  a  model  of  righteousness.  He 
has  gone  away  convinced  that  I  am  a  double- 
dyed  ingrate,  and  that  I'm  too  stubborn  to  rec 
ognize  resplendent  virtue  when  I  see  it.  I'm 

57 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


sorry.  I  love  Cabot;  I'd  give  him  half  I  pos 
sess — but  I  can't  yield  that  point." 

This  is  typical  of  his  attitude  toward  the 
best  of  his  friends  when  it  comes  to  a  conflict 
of  judgment.  So  the  fear  entertained  of  Mr. 
Lodge's  malevolent  influence  if  he  had  become 
Secretary  of  State  had  probably  little  founda 
tion.  With  Mr.  Roosevelt  the  counsel  of  val 
ued  associates  is  always  welcome,  but  his  de 
cisions  he  prefers  to  make  himself. 

Neighbors  of  many  years,  family  intimates, 
a  few  old  school-fellows  and  college-mates, 
make  up  most  of  the  first  group  of  friends  in 
my  classification.  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  called 
upon  one  and  another  of  them  at  times  for  some 
public  service  which  involved  hard  work  and 
insufficient  remuneration.  Such  a  summons  is 
the  patent  of  his  faith  in  their  patriotism.  In 
the  second  category  is  gathered  a  motley  collec 
tion  of  types.  I  remember  well  the  scowl  that 
crossed  his  brow  when  he  read  in  the  news 
papers  that  "Joe"  Murray,  a  New  York  Repub 
lican  ward  worker,  had  introduced  in  a  partizan 
organization  a  resolution  which  seemed  to  re 
flect  upon  the  honorable  conduct  of  the  United 
States  Civil-Service  Commission  when  he — 
Roosevelt — was  a  member  of  it.  "Why,  Joe 

58 


A   POLITICAL  COACH 


Murray  was  the  man  who  taught  me  my  first 
lessons  in  practical  politics!"  he  exclaimed. 
"He  ought  to  know  better  than  to  be  in  such 
business." 

He  gave  the  resolution  the  drubbing  it  de 
served,  and  forced  the  fighting  until  the  organ 
ization  had  crawled  through  a  small  hole,  and 
gladly,  in  its  anxiety  to  retreat;  but  he  never 
punished  Murray  personally,  always  preferring 
to  believe  that  the  poor  fellow  was  misguided 
rather  than  vicious.  The  fact  that  Murray  had 
given  him  his  first  coaching  when  he  was 
thrown,  a  greenhorn,  among  old  hands  practised 
at  the  game,  had  bound  the  two  men  together 
not  merely  for  the  time  or  for  a  few  months 
or  years  thereafter,  but  virtually  for  life.  This 
limitless  gratitude  is  undoubtedly  a  weakness 
on  Mr.  Roosevelt's  part,  but  an  amiable  weak 
ness,  which  shows  his  extremely  human  side. 
One  of  his  first  thoughts  as  President  was  to 
find  a  place  in  the  Federal  service  where  Mur 
ray  would  fit,  and  put  him  into  it.  The  posi 
tion  that  offered  itself  in  due  season,  and  was 
promptly  filled,  was  the  deputy  commissioner- 
ship  of  immigration  at  Ellis  Island. 

Another  of  his  helpers  in  time  of  need  who 
is  now  reaping  the  reward  of  their  lucky  con- 

59 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tact  is  General  Leonard  Wood,  the  military 
governor  of  the  Moro  country  in  the  Philip 
pines.  Close  as  their  companionship  has  since 
become,  the  two  men  did  not  know  each  other 
till  the  winter  of  1897-98,  a  few  months  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  with  Spain.  It  had 
always  been  a  fond  dream  of  Roosevelt's  to  take 
part  in  a  war.  He  had  come  upon  the  stage 
too  late  for  the  great  struggle  for  the  Union, 
but  his  assurance  that  Spain  would  one  day 
have  to  be  forced  out  of  Cuba  seemed  on  the 
verge  of  fulfilment  about  the  time  he  met  Wood, 
in  whom  he  found  a  man  of  kindred  faith  and 
aspirations.  They  were  nearly  of  an  age,  and 
both  fond  of  hardy  sports.  Wood,  though  only 
an  army  surgeon,  had  enjoyed  a  military  train 
ing  in  the  field,  which  Roosevelt  had  not.  Cir 
cumstances,  moreover,  had  once  placed  Wood 
in  command  of  troops — an  extraordinary  acci 
dent  for  a  medical  staff-officer — in  the  midst  of 
an  Indian  campaign,  and  he  had  acquitted  him 
self  with  credit.  Anticipating  a  war  in  Cuba, 
he  had  visited  the  island  and  looked  over  some 
of  the  ground  which  it  was  supposed  would  be 
the  site  of  active  hostilities.  All  these  things 
gave  his  companionship  an  added  interest  to 
Roosevelt,  who,  when  President  McKinley  of- 

60 


MAKING   THE   SOLDIER 


fered  him  the  command  of  a  regiment,  at  once 
consented  to  take  its  lieutenant-colonelcy  if  the 
President  would  make  Wood  its  colonel. 

This  looks,  at  a  first  glance,  more  like  Roose 
velt  helping  Wood  than  Wood  helping  Roose 
velt;  but  such  an  assumption  leaves  out  of  view 
the  fact  that  Roosevelt,  eager  to  be  at  the  front 
but  conscious  of  his  own  ignorance  of  practical 
military  affairs,  needed  most  of  all  a  teacher, 
and  that  Wood  was  competent  to  teach  him 
just  what  he  would  require  to  know.  The  idea 
of  the  Rough  Rider  regiment  was  Roosevelt's 
own.  For  years  he  had  cherished  the  thought,  as 
he  watched  the  bold  equestrianism  of  the  cow 
boys  in  the  West  and  the  fox-hunters  and  polo- 
players  in  the  East,  that  here  was  the  finest 
material  in  the  whole  country  from  which  to 
recruit  a  cavalry  contingent  in  case  of  war.  It 
was  Roosevelt's  name  which  attracted  enlist 
ments  everywhere;  Wood's  was  almost  or  quite 
unknown.  Wood  had  hardly  put  Roosevelt 
through  his  first  paces  in  drill  and  field  tactics, 
in  the  routine  duties  of  command,  and  in  the 
care  of  his  men,  when  an  accident  placed  Wood 
in  charge  of  their  brigade  and  raised  Roosevelt 
to  the  head  of  the  regiment.  Here  the  future 
President's  nominal  rank  corresponded  for  the 

61 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


first  time  with  his  actual  prestige  and  authority, 
and  he  laid  the  foundation  for  the  military  ele 
ment  which  entered  so  largely  into  his  political 
campaigning  a  few  months  later. 

Wood's  advancement  from  a  captain's  grade 
in  the  army  medical  service  to  a  full  major- 
generalcy  in  five  years  is  perhaps  the  most  re 
markable  recorded  in  our  day.  It  places  him 
where  practically  nothing  can  prevent  his  at 
taining  the  supreme  place  in  his  profession 
while  he  is  still  a  comparatively  young  man. 
For  his  latest  rise  he  has  to  thank  President 
Roosevelt,  who  never  has  forgotten  the  helping 
hand  held  out  in  1898. 

General  S.  B.  M.  Young  also  belongs  in 
the  list  of  useful  friends.  He  and  Roosevelt 
became  acquainted  in  the  West  a  good  while 
before  Wood  came  into  view.  Roosevelt  was 
particularly  attracted  to  him  by  his  soldierly 
qualities.  Not  long  before  war  was  declared 
with  Spain,  at  a  luncheon  in  Washington  where 
these  three  were  present,  the  conversation  turned 
upon  the  outlook,  and  Roosevelt  and  Wood  told 
Young  that  they  were  laying  their  plans  to  get 
into  the  war  if  one  came.  "Then  I  will  try  to 
have  you  attached  to  my  command,  if  I  have 
one,"  said  Young,  "and  I'll  give  you  a  chance 

62 


Copyright,  1902 .  by  G.  G.  Rockwood. 

COLONEL  OF  THE  ROUGH  RIDERS. 


HELPING   THE   OTHER   HALF 

to  see  some  fighting."  He  was  as  good  as  his 
word.  The  Rough  Riders  became  part  of  his 
cavalry  brigade.  Young's  attack  of  fever,  in 
capacitating  him  for  a  time,  was  what  devolved 
the  command  of  the  brigade  on  Wood  and 
opened  to  Roosevelt  his  golden  opportunity  as 
colonel.  Young  forged  ahead  from  that  day 
forward,  and  has  rounded  out  his  career,  by 
grace  of  President  Roosevelt,  as  the  last  lieuten 
ant-general  commanding  the  army  and  the  first 
chief  of  the  general  staff. 

Jacob  A.  Riis  was  a  police  reporter  on  the 
Sun  when  Roosevelt  went  back  to  New  York 
to  become  president  of  the  Board  of  Police 
Commissioners.  Not  content  with  doing  his 
daily  stint  of  work  and  drawing  his  salary,  Riis 
had  addressed  himself  to  the  task  of  making 
more  tolerable  the  condition  of  the  poor  people 
with  whom  his  duties  brought  him  into  con 
tact.  His  book,  How  the  Other  Half  Lives, 
arrested  Roosevelt's  attention,  and  the  reporter 
was  pleased  and  surprised  at  finding  on  his  desk 
one  day  the  card  of  the  president  of  the  board, 
with  the  scribbled  sentence,  "I  have  come  to 
help."  Roosevelt  had  discovered,  through 
Riis's  book,  the  man  who  could  show  him  where 
a  monumental  reform  might  be  accomplished, 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


and  who  would  lend  a  hand  at  putting  it 
through.  By  their  joint  efforts  they  ridded 
New  York  of  scores  of  vile  tenement-houses, 
opened  clean  breathing-places  for  the  poor 
where  filth  and  foul  air  had  formerly  held  un 
disputed  sway,  compelled  the  police  to  do  their 
duty  even  to  the  helpless  denizens  of  the  slums, 
and  left  the  big  city  a  much  better  place  than 
they  had  found  it  when  they  entered  on  their 
program  of  improvement.  Mr.  Riis  is  still  a 
plain  citizen.  Probably  he  will,  of  his  own 
choice,  always  remain  such,  and  win  more  glory 
from  his  achievements  as  one  of  the  people  than 
from  all  the  official  honors  that  could  be  heaped 
upon  him;  but  when  the  project  for  the  pur 
chase  of  the  Danish  West  Indies  was  under  way 
the  President  offered  him  the  governorship  of 
that  colony. 

I  have  chosen  these  few  illustrations  as 
typical  of  many.  I  am  conscious  that  so  bald 
a  presentation  of  them  may  leave  Mr.  Roose 
velt  open  to  the  charge  of  repaying  favors  done 
to  him  as  a  man,  with  offices  which  are  com 
mitted  to  his  trust  as  President.  Such  a  theory, 
however,  would  rest  only  on  a  partial  view  of 
the  facts.  Just  as  Mr.  Roosevelt's  conception 
of  duty  ignores  all  sorts  of  magnificent  ideals 


"MY   REGIMENT" 


at  long  range  and  fastens  itself  upon  the  tasks 
which  lie  nearest  his  hand,  so  his  judgment  of 
men,  and  his  faith  in  their  ability  to  do  certain 
things,  are  formed  much  more  surely  on  their 
accomplishments  under  his  own  eyes  than  on 
any  public  reputation  they  may  have  gained 
elsewhere.  He  is  a  good  appreciator.  He 
knows  when  a  job  has  been  well  done  for  him, 
and  he  would  rather  have  that  evidence  of  the 
workman's  capacity  for  larger  jobs  than  a  hun 
dred  testimonials  to  the  excellence  of  the  same 
man's  work  for  others. 

It  is  doubtless  this  sense  of  personal  famil 
iarity  which  accounts  for  the  obtrusion  of  "my 
regiment"  into  almost  every  subject  that  comes 
before  him.  The  Rough  Riders  were  the  joy 
of  his  heart.  He  had  had  virtually  his  pick  of 
men ;  and,  realizing  the  chances  of  war,  he  had 
begun  from  the  start  a  search  for  lieutenants 
who  would  do  to  make  into  captains,  sergeants 
who  could  safely  be  raised  to  lieutenancies, 
corporals  who  deserved  to  be  sergeants,  and 
privates  who  had  corporals'  stuff  in  them. 
Thus  he  became  acquainted  substantially  with 
all  the  members  of  the  regiment,  certainly  with 
all  whose  characteristics  were  in  any  wise  pro 
nounced.  As  a  result,  he  discovered  qualities 

65 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


in  them  which  many  officers  would  have  over 
looked,  and  these  clung  in  his  memory,  so  that 
he  has  since  had  a  trooper  story  to  fit  every 
situation.  It  is  worth  noting,  also,  that  he  has 
had  a  trooper  in  the  flesh  to  fit  more  than  one. 
When  an  enterprise  of  particular  difficulty  or 
hazard  is  to  be  set  afoot  for  the  Government, 
his  first  thought  is  always  of  the  men  who  went 
with  him  to  Cuba.  They  were  a  resourceful 
lot,  as  well  as  fearless.  For  the  less  perilous 
positions,  like  those  of  Territorial  governor, 
customs  appraiser,  postmaster,  etc.,  he  has 
selected  a  few;  and  in  positions  which  com 
bine  a  peaceful  purpose  with  an  occasional  per 
sonal  risk,  like  forest  rangers  in  the  far  West, 
a  goodly  number  are  making  creditable  records. 
One  bitter  disappointment  awaited  the  Pres 
ident  in  his  effort  to  make  use  of  his  soldier 
friends  in  civil  office.  A  marshal  was  to  be 
appointed  for  Arizona.  The  position  is  of  the 
kind  which  calls  for  very  little  book-learning 
but  a  great  deal  of  common  sense,  persistency, 
and  courage.  The  politicians  swarmed  over 
the  White  House,  recommendations  in  hand. 
This  man  was  indorsed  by  the  Republican  Ter 
ritorial  committee,  that  one  had  been  a  gen 
erous  contributor  to  the  campaign  fund,  a  third 

66 


ROUGH   BUT   READY 


had  once  been  favorably  considered  by  Presi 
dent  McKinley,  and  so  on. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Mr.  Roosevelt,  "I  have 
my  man  selected.  His  name  is  Ben  Daniels. 
He  has  no  political  backing,  but  I  know  him 
clear  through  for  a  soldier  who  never  received 
an  order  which  he  could  not  execute.  He  is 
dead  game;  and  as  a  marshal,  when  he  goes 
for  a  malefactor  he  will  fetch  him  in,  if  it  takes 
all  the  horses  and  all  the  ammunition  in  the 
Territory." 

"Daniels  is  a  pretty  rough  character,"  ar 
gued  the  politicians.  "Are  you  sure  he'll  pass 
muster?" 

"I've  seen  smoother  persons,"  responded  the 
President,  without  wavering;  "but  it  is  not  ex 
actly  a  polished  gentleman  I'm  looking  for  to 
hunt  down  desperate  murderers  and  drag  pro 
fessional  highwaymen  to  justice." 

So  in  went  the  name  of  Benjamin  Franklin 
Daniels  to  the  Senate.  The  nomination  was  re 
ferred,  in  the  regular  order,  to  the  Committee 
on  Judiciary,  of  which  Mr.  Hoar  of  Massachu 
setts,  the  most  scholarly  and  refined  of  Senators, 
is  chairman.  The  choice  for  an  important  Fed 
eral  office  of  just  such  a  specimen — an  ex-deni 
zen  of  a  Southwestern  mining-camp  who  lacked 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


half  an  ear  as  a  memento  of  an  encounter  with 
a  "bad  man" — was  not  quite  the  customary 
thing;  but  it  was  allowed  to  pass  till  somebody 
came  forward  with  the  charge  that  Daniels  was 
a  hard  drinker.  This  was  brought  to  the  notice 
of  the  President. 

"Daniels  used  to  drink  hard,"  he  asserted. 
"He  has  told  me  all  about  that.  But  he's 
straight  now." 

Then  came  an  accuser  with  a  story  of  the 
candidate's  gambling  propensities. 

"Quite  true,"  responded  the  President,  when 
questioned.  "Ben  never  made  any  secret  of 
that.  He  used  to  have  an  interest  in  a  game, 
but  it  was  a  square  one.  The  code  of  manners 
in  the  community  where  he  grew  up  is  not 
quite  that  of  New  England.  A  good  many 
men  of  first-rate  mettle  in  the  pioneer  West 
have  drunk  out  of  a  bottle  and  paid  their  way 
at  times  from  the  proceeds  of  a  poker-pot. 
These  are  not  practises  which  we  sterner  moral 
ists  should  commend  on  general  principles,  but 
we  have  to  judge  such  things  comparatively, 
and  in  the  light  of  the  local  environment.  I 
never  heard  that  Ben  was  a  'skin'  gambler,  and 
in  any  event  he  has  promised  me  that  he  will 
not  touch  a  card  while  he  remains  in  office." 

68 


A   FATAL   DISCOVERY 


Thus  matters  seemed  to  be  moving  fairly 
for  the  marshal-elect,  when  suddenly  some  one 
who  had  been  following  his  life's  trail  made 
the  startling  announcement  that  a  person  named 
Benjamin  Daniels  had  once  served  a  term  in 
the  Wyoming  Penitentiary  for  theft.  The 
parallel  between  the  convict  Daniels  and  the 
Daniels  who  had  been  named  for  marshal  of 
Arizona  seemed  complete  in  such  particulars 
as  age  and  appearance. 

The  critics  became  inquisitive  again,  and 
this  time  their  questions  found  the  President 
perturbed  in  spirit.  The  prison  record  showed 
that,  when  the  thief  Daniels  was  sentenced,  the 
court  had  taken  cognizance  of  his  youth  and 
made  his  punishment  lighter  than  it  might,  be 
cause  it  was  plain  that  he  had  been  led  into 
his  criminal  escapade  by  older  and  more  force 
ful  men. 

But  that  was  not  the  phase  of  the  question 
uppermost  in  the  President's  mind.  His  one 
thought  was:  "Has  Ben  Daniels  deceived  me 
by  holding  back  this  fact  when  I  asked  him 
for  a  full  and  honest  story  of  his  life?"  The 
telegraph  was  called  into  play.  Daniels  ad 
mitted  his  identity  with  the  former  convict.  A 
pathetic  letter  followed  his  despatch  of  confes- 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


sion.  It  told  of  his  effort  to  live  down  the 
past,  and  the  hope  he  had  cherished  that  his 
colonel's  belief  in  him  would  open  a  new  and 
better  chapter  in  his  career.  But  it  was  too 
late.  His  commission,  already  signed,  was  can 
celed.  One  thing  Theodore  Roosevelt  can  not 
brook:  the  discovery  of  bad  faith  where  he  has 
placed  his  trust. 


70 


CHAPTER   V 

PRESIDENT  AND   CABINET 

Official  families  by  inheritance — First  break  in  the  Roosevelt  Cabi 
net — What  led  to  Mr.  Gage's  resignation — A  quaint  tribute 
— Other  changes — A  new  chair  at  the  table,  and  how  filled. 

THE  relations  of  Presidents  with  their  Cab 
inets  make  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  polit 
ical  history  of  the  country  from  the  days  of 
Washington  down.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  relation 
to  his  was  unique.  It  came  to  him  by  inherit 
ance,  but  not  as  Arthur's  descended;  for  Arthur 
had  become  Vice-President  through  a  make 
shift  move  at  the  conclusion  of  the  national 
convention  of  1880,  and  represented,  then  and 
later,  the  element  in  his  party  antipodal  to  that 
which  had  supported  Garfield.  Roosevelt,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  been  nominated  for  Vice- 
President  by  the  same  united  party  that  had 
nominated  McKinley  for  a  second  term  as 
President.  He  was  easily  the  first  choice  of 
his  whole  party  for  the  second  place  in  the 
Government,  just  as  he  was  the  second  choice 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


of  his  whole  party  for  the  first  place.  There 
was  no  personal  antagonism  between  President 
and  Vice-President.  When  McKinley  fell, 
therefore,  and  Roosevelt  stepped  into  the  vacant 
office,  his  inauguration  was  in  the  nature  of 
the  acceptance  of  a  trusteeship.  He  had  but 
one  course  to  follow — the  completion  of  the 
work  McKinley  had  begun,  with  only  such 
additions  or  emendations  as  the  shifting  tide  of 
events  during  the  next  three  years  might  de 
mand.  Hence,  what  more  natural  than  that 
he  should  try  to  keep  at  his  side  the  same  group 
of  advisers  whom  McKinley  had  brought  to 
gether  to  help  execute  the  policies  mapped  out 
for  a  second  and  more  memorable  term?  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  invitation  to  the  whole  Cabinet  to 
remain  with  him  was  offered  almost  at  the  bed 
side  of  the  murdered  President.  It  derived  a 
special  solemnity  from  its  surroundings,  and 
every  one  concerned  was  impressed  by  this.  It 
was  accepted  as  it  was  made,  in  entire  good 
faith,  and  without  reserve.  The  publicists  of 
the  country  received  it  as  a  first  earnest  of  the 
new  President's  conservatism  and  good  sense; 
the  people  applauded  it  as  his  response  to  a 
generous  impulse  thoroughly  characteristic  of 
him. 

72 


MR.   GAGE'S   RETIREMENT 

But  human  nature  is  only  human  nature. 
As  one  coat  will  not  fit  all  men,  so  with  one 
group  of  counselors.  It  was  not  long  before 
circumstances  seemed  to  make  certain  changes 
in  the  Cabinet  imperative.  Mr.  Gage,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  the  first  to  drop 
out,  after  the  unusual  term  of  five  years  of 
service.  The  parting,  which  occasioned  much 
comment  at  the  time  and  has  been  made  the 
subject  of  gross  misrepresentation,  was  in  the 
best  of  friendship,  and  yet  there  is  no  denying 
that  the  first  suggestion  of  it  came  with  the 
manifestation  by  the  President  of  a  trait  pecul 
iarly  his  own.  From  the  time  he  entered  upon 
an  executive  career,  it  had  been  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  fortune  to  be  thrown  with  men  lacking 
his  masterful  ways,  and  he  had  fallen  into  the 
habit  of  taking  charge  of  affairs  himself,  re 
gardless  of  what  the  specific  relations  of  others 
might  be  to  them.  As  President  of  the  United 
States  he  was,  of  course,  supreme  in  the  Admin 
istration,  and  at  liberty  to  do  what  he  chose  in 
the  domain  of  officers  whom  he  could  appoint 
and  remove.  But  President  McKinley  had  al 
ways  been  punctilious  about  the  formal  cour 
tesies  even  with  his  own  appointees.  They  had 
grown  to  expect  a  certain  routine  to  be  followed 

73 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


in  all  administrative  work.  Mr.  Gage  was 
himself  a  strict  observer  of  the  proprieties,  and 
looked  for  them  in  others.  This  meant  that 
when  any  information  was  desired  by  the  Presi 
dent  concerning  a  matter  within  the  Treasury 
jurisdiction,  he  should  make  his  request  for  it 
of  the  Secretary,  who  in  turn  would  call  upon 
the  proper  subordinate  for  the  facts,  and  trans 
mit  the  subordinate's  report,  after  revising 
it,  to  the  President.  The  correspondence  in 
such  cases  constitutes  what  is  known  in  official 
phraseology  as  a  "record,"  and  a  copy  of  it  is 
kept  on  file. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  always  felt,  however,  ex 
cept  as  to  business  which  involved  the  fixing  of 
individual  responsibility  for  an  official  act,  that 
"records"  were  a  good  deal  of  a  nuisance.  Just 
as  he  discarded  his  sword  in  Cuba  because  it 
got  in  the  way  of  his  legs,  so  at  an  early  stage 
of  his  career  in  office  he  discarded  all  routine 
methods  where  mere  information  was  to  be 
sought  and  obtained.  As  Civil-Service  Com 
missioner  he  used  to  say  that  if  he  wished  to 
learn  how  something  was  going  on  in  an  ex 
ecutive  office,  he  could  get  more  satisfaction  out 
of  a  few  minutes'  talk  face  to  face  with  the 
clerk  who  had  charge  of  the  business  itself 

74 


DISCIPLINE  AT   A  DISCOUNT 

than  from  a  fortnight's  formal  correspondence 
with  the  head  of  the  department.  This  idea 
he  carried  into  all  his  work  from  that  time  for 
ward.  Red  tape  grew  more  and  more  hate 
ful  to  him.  As  President,  therefore,  when  he 
wished  to  know  something  about  the  immigra 
tion  service,  and  know  it  right  away,  he  would 
send  for  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immi 
gration,  and  in  a  half-hour's  conversation  go 
over  the  whole  ground;  or  if  he  wished  to  as 
certain  something  definite  about  the  conduct  of 
a  certain  public  officer,  he  would  send  for  the 
chief  of  the  Secret  Service  and  instruct  him 
orally  whom  to  watch  and  what  trails  to  pursue. 
Doubtless  this  did  save  a  great  deal  of  time 
and  avoid  much  useless  circumlocution,  but  it 
was  not  the  "regular"  thing  to  do.  Moreover, 
strongly  as  it  may  appeal  to  the  judgment  of 
a  majority  of  civilians  in  private  life,  every 
one  conversant  with  official  business  knows  that 
such  a  practise  can  not  become  general  with 
out  utterly  demoralizing  a  service  by  under 
mining  its  discipline,  since  that  must  rest  upon 
each  subordinate's  sense  of  responsibility  to  his 
immediate  chief.  It  is  hardly  wonderful,  there 
fore,  that  Secretary  Gage  soon  grew  restive  un 
der  the  restraints  of  an  office  in  which  he  was 

75 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


expected  to  defer  always  to  his  own  superior, 
while  his  lieutenants  were  not  expected  to  show 
like  deference  to  him. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  saying  that 
this  was  the  cause  of  Mr.  Gage's  retirement 
from  the  Cabinet.  It  was  only  the  first  of  a 
group  of  contributory  influences.  The  drop 
ping  of  George  R.  Bidwell  and  the  appoint 
ment  of  Nevada  N.  Stranahan  as  Collector 
of  Customs  at  New  York  in  opposition  to 
the  wishes  of  the  Secretary,  who  retained  to 
the  last  his  objection  to  any  change,  increased 
the  tension  of  the  situation  pretty  nearly  to  the 
breaking-point.  But  there  were  other  consid 
erations  involved  also.  Mr.  Gage  had  made 
a  wonderfully  successful  administration  of  the 
fiscal  affairs  of  the  Government.  He  had  car 
ried  the  nation  through  a  foreign  war  not  only 
without  impairing  the  quality  of  its  currency, 
but  with  such  credit  as  enabled  him  to  begin 
refunding  the  public  debt  at  2  per  cent,  and  to 
see  even  the  2-per-cent  bonds  quoted  at  a  pre 
mium.  He  was  at  the  zenith  of  his  prestige 
as  a  financier;  his  name  was  as  familiar  as  a 
household  word  on  every  bourse  in  the  world. 
No  higher  honors  were  within  his  reach. 
Withal,  he  was  advancing  in  years  and  nearing 


ADDITIONAL   REASONS 


the  crest  from  which  all  roads  lead  downward. 
The  business  of  the  country,  unless  the  lessons 
of  the  past  were  misleading,  was  soon  to  enter 
the  period  of  liquidation  which  surely  follows 
an  era  of  uncommon  prosperity.  To  use  his 
own  homely  phrase,  "When  that  time  comes, 
I'm  willing  to  let  some  other  fellow  walk  the 
floor."  If,  therefore,  Mr.  Gage  were  to  return 
to  private  life  while  still  in  condition  to  take 
a  prominent  part  in  its  activities,  the  time  to 
do  so  seemed  to  be  at  hand.  A  dozen  most  flat 
tering  opportunities  lay  open  before  him.  One 
of  these  he  presently  decided  to  accept,  having 
first  placed  his  resignation  in  the  President's 
hands  and  asked  to  be  released  not  later  than 
a  certain  date.  The  President  had  urged  him 
to  remain,  but,  finding  the  Secretary's  resolve 
unalterable,  yielded  to  his  request. 

Not  an  unpleasant  word  passed  between  the 
two  men  at  any  stage  of  their  relations.  The 
President  knew  Mr.  Gage's  value,  but  recog 
nized  the  wide  difference  in  their  training  and 
the  irreconcilable  variance  of  their  points  of 
view  on  certain  matters.  Mr.  Gage,  though 
disagreeing  with  the  President  in  more  than  one 
opinion  and  realizing  the  essential  antagonism 
of  their  methods,  cherished  only  admiration  of 

77 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


his  young  chief's  character  and  wished  him 
every  success.  I  remember  that  one  day,  just 
before  his  retirement,  he  was  describing  to  me 
a  vigorous  stand  the  President  had  taken  on  a 
question  called  up  in  Cabinet;  when,  raising 
one  clenched  fist  in  air  and  bringing  it  down 
upon  his  office  table  with  a  resounding  bang,  he 
threw  his  head  back  and  exclaimed  in  his  quaint 
way:  "Take  him  all  around,  there's  the  finest 
forty-year-older  I  ever  saw!" 

Many  persons,  deceived  by  false  reports  of 
disaffection,  assumed  that  Mr.  Gage's  resigna 
tion  was  the  first  symptom  of  a  general  disin 
tegration  of  the  Cabinet.  My  own  opinion, 
based  upon  the  unwritten  history  of  the  period, 
was  that,  so  far  from  being  symptomatic  of 
changes  yet  to  come,  this  break  simply  fur 
nished  an  outlet  for  some  of  the  administrative 
humors  which  might  have  resulted  in  a  general 
eruption  if  they  had  been  allowed  to  accumu 
late  under  the  surface.  In  other  words,  it 
called  sharply  to  the  mind  of  the  President  a 
few  possibilities  which  had  not  come  seriously 
home  to  him  before,  and  undoubtedly  had  the 
effect  of  modifying  certain  of  his  tendencies. 
Nothing  can  change  his  own  directness  into 
indirection,  or  soften  his  contempt  for  mere 

78 


TWO  OTHER   CHANGES 


bureaucratic  routine;  but  if  he  has  not  wholly 
ceased  his  habit  of  reaching  into  a  department 
over  the  head  of  its  chief  and  negotiating  with 
the  subordinates  face  to  face,  he  at  least  tries 
to  remember  to  speak  of  the  matter  to  the  chief, 
so  that  the  officer  responsible  for  the  manage 
ment  of  the  department  shall  not  be  ignorant 
of  what  is  passing  therein. 

Two  other  changes  in  the  Cabinet  roster  oc 
curred  during  the  first  year  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
presidency.  Both  of  these  were  free  from  even 
the  suggestion  of  such  preliminary  friction  as 
gave  the  prime  impulse  to  Mr.  Gage's  retire 
ment.  Charles  Emory  Smith,  who  resigned  the 
postmaster-generalship,  had  planned  to  do  this 
even  if  Mr.  McKinley  had  remained  President, 
as  his  private  business  interests  demanded  an 
attention  which  he  could  not  give  them  while 
in  office,  and  he  could  not  afford  to  sacrifice  his 
whole  future  to  a  longer  stay  in  Washington. 
Secretary  Long  resigned  the  navy  portfolio  be 
cause  he  was  thoroughly  tired.  The  domestic 
bereavement  and  unremitting  anxiety  which 
had  clouded  the  entire  period  of  his  Cabinet 
service  could  have  only  one  effect  upon  a  man 
with  such  a  passion  as  his  for  home  and  family 
and  peace.  The  associations  of  a  public  career 
7  79 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


at  the  capital  became  distasteful  to  him,  and 
he  longed  for  a  chance  to  return  to  the  quiet 
of  his  old  life  and  occupations. 

Secretary  Moody,  who  succeeded  Mr.  Long, 
formed  while  in  Congress  the  pleasantest  sort 
of  an  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Roosevelt.  They 
were  fellow  members  of  a  little  circle  in  Wash 
ington  who  saw  a  good  deal  of  each  other  out 
of  office  hours.  It  was  composed  largely  of 
Eastern  men  in  the  executive  and  legislative 
branches  of  the  Government,  who  were  bound 
together  by  their  common  youth  and  by  the  tie 
of  active  interest  in  the  same  subjects.  Mr. 
Moody  is  essentially  a  man  of  the  people,  reared 
in  a  community  of  hardy  fisher-folk  on  the 
Massachusetts  coast;  his  climb  to  his  present 
eminence  has  called  into  play  all  the  bold  and 
rugged  traits  in  his  composition,  and  this  is 
the  sort  of  thing  that  captures  a  heart  like  the 
President's.  His  service  as  a  member  of  the 
House  Committee  on  Appropriations  and  his 
interest  in  naval  affairs  seemed  to  give  him  a 
peculiar  fitness  for  the  head  of  a  department 
which  had  before  it  the  task  of  strengthening 
the  sea  power  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Root,  who  was  President  McKinley's 
Secretary  of  War,  remained  under  President 

80 


KNOX,   ROOT,   CORTELYOU 

Roosevelt  till  he  had  completed  the  reforms 
in  the  military  establishment  to  which  he  had 
addressed  himself  at  the  start,  and  then  resigned, 
greatly  to  the  regret  of  all  his  associates.  He, 
however,  had  been  Mr.  Roosevelt's  close  friend 
and  adviser  in  New  York  politics  before  either 
came  to  Washington  for  his  final  triumph.  In 
the  Cabinet  he  and  Mr.  Knox,  the  Attorney- 
General,  supplied  an  element  which  Mr.  Roose 
velt  lacked — the  faculty  of  cool  and  patient  cal 
culation  of  technical  problems  into  which  no 
component  of  human  personality  entered. 

Of  Secretary  Cortelyou  it  suffices  to  say  that 
his  appointment  as  the  first  Secretary  of  Com 
merce  was  due  to  his  display  of  a  special  tal 
ent  for  organization.  He  is  not  a  discoverer 
or  an  inventor.  He  is  not  a  trained  economist. 
He  has  never  shown  any  particular  gifts  for 
statecraft  in  its  broader  sense.  But  he  is  a 
rigidly  upright  man,  and  has  certain  practi 
cal  virtues  which  the  President  admires  vastly 
— in  others — caution,  method,  and  a  genius  for 
making  minutiae  count.  Mr.  Cortelyou  might 
have  been  unequal  to  the  perplexities  of  the 
Treasury  administration,  or  those  which  Sec 
retary  Root  had  to  face  in  effecting  his  mili 
tary  reforms;  but  of  his  ability  to  install  a  new 

81 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


department  and  set  it  running,  to  compose  the 
differences  between  the  existing  mechanisms 
transferred  to  it,  to  man  and  equip  the  new 
bureaus  created  especially  for  it,  to  trim  the 
overlapping  functions  of  all  these  component 
parts  and  readjust  their  relations  so  as  to  re 
duce  their  friction  to  a  minimum:  of  this  there 
was  no  room  for  doubt.  Moreover,  the  new 
department  had  been  for  years  a  dream  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt's.  It  was  one  of  the  progressive  ideas 
advanced  in  his  first  message  as  President.  Mr. 
Cortelyou  had  been  closely  associated  with  him 
throughout  the  period  in  which  the  dream  ac 
quired  substance,  and  Congress  molded  that 
substance  into  its  final  form.  What  had  been 
in  the  President's  mind  had  passed  thence  into 
Mr.  Cortelyou's  by  daily  contact.  The  factor 
knew  just  what  ends  his  principal  had  in  view, 
and  the  means  by  which  he  purposed  to  reach 
these,  if  possible.  No  one  else,  probably,  could 
have  executed  his  initial  plans  with  so  little 
hesitancy  and  so  few  mistakes. 


82 


CHAPTER   VI 

TWO    COUNCILORS    IN    PARTICULAR 

Secretary  Shaw's  personality — His  rise  in  the  world — A  Yankee 
who  "gets  there  " — Postmaster- General  Payne — The  Cabi 
net  politician — Faulty  training  for  an  investigator. 

LIMITS  of  space  forbid  my  touching  espe 
cially  on  any  of  the  members  of  President 
Roosevelt's  Cabinet  except  those  who  have  gone 
out  or  come  in  during  his  term.  The  most 
notable  of  his  own  appointments  are  those  of 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Shaw  and  Postmas 
ter-General  Payne.  Both  were  made  while  the 
young  President  was  still  somewhat  new  at 
his  work,  and  the  choice  of  men  for  two  posi 
tions  of  so  commanding  importance  affords  us 
an  interesting  glimpse  of  his  mental  processes. 

Leslie  M.  Shaw  was  a  lawyer  and  banker 
in  a  small  interior  town.  He  had  acquired  no 
repute  as  a  financier.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
his  name  was  recognized,  when  first  mentioned 
by  the  press  in  connection  with  the  succession 
to  Lyman  J.  Gage,  by  ten  readers  in  every  hun- 

83 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


dred,  and  even  the  ten  probably  had  vague  and 
variegated  notions  of  who  he  was.  The  Presi 
dent  himself  did  not  know  him  on  his  business 
side,  but  only  as  a  conspicuous  political  figure 
in  the  Middle  West.  They  had  met  a  few 
times  while  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  making  one  of 
his  campaign  dashes  through  the  upper  Missis 
sippi  Valley;  all  the  rest  of  their  impressions 
of  each  other  were  absorbed  from  the  atmos 
phere  and  an  occasional  anecdote. 

Shaw  was  genial  and  hearty  in  manner,  a 
good  story-teller,  fond  of  his  joke.  But  from 
behind  his  bluff  and  apparently  careless  ex 
terior  he  looked  out  upon  the  world  through 
a  pair  of  keen,  shrewd,  gray-blue  eyes  that  saw 
a  deal  more  than  their  owner  always  cared  to 
speak  about;  and  his  quiet  chuckle  often  had 
more  significance  in  the  ears  of  his  intimate 
friends  than  his  words.  He  was  too  self-poised 
to  be  a  respecter  of  persons;  the  multimillion 
aire  could  no  more  unsettle  his  equanimity  than 
the  wage-laborer.  He  was  candid  enough, 
even  when  addressing  a  Republican  audience, 
to  praise  President  Cleveland  for  saving  the 
public  credit  in  the  stormy  days  of  1893-94. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  took  a  fancy  to  him  at  their  first 
meeting  and  retained  a  vivid  memory  of  it. 


MR.   SHAW'S   ORIGIN 


But  why  should  this  man  have  been  chosen 
for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury?  Thereby  hangs 
a  tale. 

Mr.  Shaw  was  a  Vermonter  by  birth.  Early 
in  life  he  had  drifted  to  Iowa,  where  he  had 
received  his  education  for  the  bar  and  begun 
practise.  Like  a  multitude  of  others  begin 
ning  in  the  same  fashion,  he  found  the  law  a 
hard  taskmistress,  and  her  prizes  few  and  slow 
of  dispensation.  He  struggled  along  for  a 
while  without  complaint,  but  his  Maker  had 
not  given  him  eyes  and  ears  and  a  brain  for 
nothing,  and  he  began  to  consider  whether 
there  were  not  ways,  outside  of  the  narrow  path 
of  his  profession,  by  which  he  could  stimulate 
his  lagging  income.  A  visit  to  his  boyhood 
home  suggested  a  plan.  The  farms  there  were 
pretty  well  worn  out,  and  mortgagors  could  not 
afford  to  pay  more  than  4  or  5  per  cent  interest 
on  their  loans;  at  that  low  rate,  indeed,  they 
often  found  themselves  unable  to  keep  up,  and 
stories  of  foreclosure,  discouragement  and  re 
moval  were  to  be  heard  on  every  hand.  But 
in  Iowa,  behold  the  difference:  rich  soil,  heavy 
crops,  well-packed  granaries,  a  thrifty,  con 
tented  farming  population,  and  yet  loans  on 
farm  mortgages  commanding  8  and  10  per  cent. 

85 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


The  difference  was  traceable,  of  course,  to  the 
fact  that  Vermont  was  an  old  community,  long 
known  in  the  haunts  of  capital  as  a  next-door 
neighbor,  whereas  Iowa  was  a  stranger  at  a  dis 
tance,  hazily  confused  in  the  minds  of  most  of 
the  Eastern  money-lenders  with  the  rest  of  a 
big  Out  West  whence  their  loans  sometimes 
came  back  and  sometimes  didn't. 

One  bright  morning  young  Shaw  awoke 
with  a  start.  "Why,"  said  he,  "should  I  not 
take  some  of  the  Eastern  capital  which  is  go 
ing  begging  at  4  and  5  per  cent,  and  clap  it 
into  Iowa  mortgages  which  will  gladly  yield 
8  and  10,  and  pocket  half  the  difference  as  my 
commission?" 

It  did  not  take  him  long  to  put  this  ingenious 
scheme  into  execution.  It  worked  to  a  charm. 
Without  ceasing  to  be  a  lawyer,  he  became  also 
a  banker,  making  Iowa  farm  mortgages  his  spe 
cialty.  His  Western  friends  were  delighted  to 
have  the  means  of  enlarging  their  borders,  put 
ting  up  additional  buildings,  buying  new  ma 
chinery.  His  Eastern  friends  were  delighted 
at  the  increase  of  their  revenues.  His  firm 
made  money  hand  over  fist. 

Then  came  the  first  threatening  sign.  Two 
or  three  bad-crop  years  wrought  Kansas  into 

86 


THE   SILVER   CRAZE 


a  fever.  The  Farmers'  Alliance,  starting  as  a 
cross-roads  society,  gathered  unto  it  most  of 
the  malcontent  elements  in  the  agricultural  and 
mining  West,  and  they  all  with  one  accord 
began  to  concoct  nostrums  instead  of  giving 
nature  a  chance.  The  Populist  movement  took 
shape;  the  Democrats  as  a  party  marched  into 
the  Populist  hospital.  The  free  coinage  of  sil 
ver,  once  a  mere  factional  fad,  became  the  one 
great  partizan  issue  before  the  whole  country. 
The  East,  as  a  matter  of  course,  took  fright.  It 
knew  too  little  of  the  West  to  distinguish  be 
tween  the  sound  and  the  affected  parts.  It 
classed  Iowa,  the  rich  farming  State  with  her 
trustworthy  climate,  her  well-satisfied  people, 
and  her  common-sense  grip  on  the  honest 
dollar,  with  some  of  her  delirious  neighbors. 
"Send  us  back  our  money,"  cried  the  East,  "and 
look  to  us  for  no  more  till  you  can  give  us  some 
assurance  that  the  hundred  cents  which  go  out 
to  you  will  return  one  hundred,  and  not  fifty!" 
It  was  a  sorry  outlook  for  the  banking  sys 
tem  established  by  Mr.  Shaw.  He  saw  that, 
in  order  to  convince  the  East  that  Iowa  was 
not  smitten  with  the  free-silver  epidemic,  heroic 
measures  must  be  taken.  He  accordingly 
plunged  into  politics.  Wherever  he  could  get 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


a  hearing  he  waked  the  echoes  with  his  speeches 
for  sound  money.  Not  content  with  the  plea 
for  a  conservative  bimetalism  with  which  more 
timid  orators  were  trying  to  stay  the  spread  of 
the  scourge,  he  took  the  aggressive,  and  boldly 
demanded  the  single  gold  standard,  scorning  all 
evasions  and  mental  reservations.  He  made  a 
good  fight.  It  caught  and  held  popular  atten 
tion.  The  mass  of  the  voting  population  of 
Iowa  liked  it.  In  due  season  they  seated  him 
in  the  Governor's  chair  by  a  handsome  majority. 
At  Des  Moines  fortune  favored  him,  and  he 
made  few  bad  errors.  It  was  as  Governor,  with 
this  record  behind  him,  that  he  encountered 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  then  running  for  Vice-Presi- 
dent.  Neither  of  the  twain  could  look  into  the 
future  far  enough  to  see  what  was  in  store  for 
himself  or  for  the  other.  Each  cherished  the 
hope  that  the  highest  place  in  the  gift  of  the 
people  might  one  day  be  his,  and  each  had  set 
1904  as  the  date  for  their  contest  of  strength. 

Then  came  the  tragedy  at  Buffalo.  From 
the  hour  when  President  McKinley  breathed 
his  last  Mr.  Shaw  became  a  Roosevelt  man  for 
1904.  His  own  aspirations  were  shattered  by 
Czolgosz's  bullet.  When  Mr.  Gage  retired 
President  Roosevelt's  first  thought  turned  to 


MAKING   THE   BEST   OF   IT 

the  hero  of  the  Iowa  gold-standard  campaign. 
He  reasoned  that  the  man  who  was  not  afraid 
to  make  such  a  fight  for  honest  money  as  a 
State  issue  would  not  fail  when  the  need  came 
for  self-assertion  in  a  national  crisis. 

Possibly  occasions  have  arisen  since  that 
day  to  raise  doubts  in  the  President's  mind  as 
to  the  wisdom  of  his  choice.  Mr.  Shaw's  first 
radical  departures  from  all  the  precedents  of 
his  office  were  made  during  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
absence  from  Washington,  and  therefore  with 
out  consultation.  The  stir  they  created  in 
financial  circles  was  enough  to  cause  some  mis 
givings  in  even  the  stoutest  heart.  But  the 
Secretary  wore  well.  He  proved  to  be,  if  not 
a  great  financial  light,  at  least  a  man  of  expedi 
ents,  true  to  his  Yankee  type.  Measures  had 
been  introduced  in  Congress  to  relieve  the  con 
gestion  of  the  surplus  revenues  in  the  Treasury 
vaults,  but  an  obstinate  opposition  had  pre 
vented  their  passage.  Many  lifelong  currency 
reformers  were  discouraged,  but  Mr.  Shaw 
said:  "If  we  can  not  get  new  legislation,  let  us 
see  whether  we  have  yet  exhausted  the  resources 
of  the  old."  And  with  that  he  prepared  his 
plan  for  restoring  the  surplus  to  the  channels 
of  trade  by  depositing  in  the  banks  all  the 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


money  that  was  not  actually  needed  as  a  work 
ing  balance  for  the  Treasury. 

"You  are  bound  to  have  your  surplus  gain 
on  you,  though,"  the  reformers  reminded  him, 
"for  the  law  requires  that  every  dollar  paid  in 
for  customs  shall  go  into  the  Treasury  and  stay 
there;  and  every  dollar  paid  in  for  internal 
taxes,  though  subject  to  deposit  in  the  banks 
directly  from  the  pocket  of  the  taxpayer,  must 
stay  in  the  Treasury  vaults,  if  it  once  gets  bodily 
into  them,  till  an  act  of  Congress  lifts  it  out 
again." 

"Not  so,"  returned  the  Secretary.  "The  in 
ternal  revenue  receipts  are  always  construc 
tively  in  the  Treasury  when  they  are  on  deposit 
in  the  banks.  It  makes  no  difference  whether 
they  have  never  gone  into  the  Treasury,  or 
whether  I  have  taken  them  in  first  and  then  let 
them  out.  The  whole  transaction  is  a  mere 
matter  of  bookkeeping." 

"We  must  have  new  legislation  to  make  the 
currency  system  more  elastic,  so  that  its  volume 
will  increase  and  decrease  in  ready  response  to 
commercial  needs,"  said  the  reformers. 

"Suppose  we  try  existing  law  and  see  how 
far  it  will  carry  us,"  was  the  Secretary's  answer. 
And  he  proceeded  to  release  for  use  as  security 

90 


PROBLEM   OF  ELASTICITY 

for  bank-note  circulation  all  the  Government 
bonds  which  the  banks  had  pledged  as  security 
for  Federal  deposits,  letting  the  banks  substi 
tute  for  these  the  soundest  State  and  municipal 
bonds;  for  the  law  as  he  read  it,  although  dis 
tinctly  requiring  United  States  bonds  as  security 
for  bank-note  issues,  vested  in  the  Secretary  a 
rather  wide  discretion  as  to  the  collateral  he 
might  accept  for  Treasury  deposits. 

So  much  for  the  quick  and  easy  increase  of 
circulation.  "But  elasticity  involves  also  the 
ability  of  the  banks  to  retire  their  notes  just  as 
quickly  and  easily,"  argued  the  reformers,  "and 
the  present  law  limits  the  total  retirements  of 
all  the  banks  to  three  million  dollars  a  month." 

"Tut!"  was  the  Secretary's  reply;  "you've 
read  the  statute  carelessly.  It  limits  not  the 
retirement  of  bank  circulation,  but  only  the 
deposit  of  legal-tender  notes  in  the  Treasury 
with  a  view  to  redeeming  it.  The  banks  can 
retire  their  circulation  as  fast  as  they  wish  to, 
if  they  can  put  their  hands  on  their  notes." 

And  so  the  play  of  objections  and  the  coun- 
terplay  of  unsuspected  ways  and  means  has 
gone  on.  Whatever  doubts  the  President  may 
at  first  have  entertained  of  the  Secretary's 
breadth  were  long  ago  resolved  by  the  discovery 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


of  his  sharpness.  Mr.  Roosevelt  likes  a  man 
who  wastes  no  time  explaining  why  he  can  not 
do  a  thing,  but  does  it;  who,  if  he  lacks  the 
most  suitable  tools,  seizes  those  which  lie  near 
est  his  hand  and  goes  to  work.  Such  a  man 
he  seems  to  have  found  in  Leslie  M.  Shaw, 
thanks  to  an  instinct  which  guided  him  straight 
when  elaborate  reasoning  would  probably  have 
led  him  in  another  direction. 

Charles  Emory  Smith  was  succeeded  as 
Postmaster-General  by  Henry  C.  Payne.  This 
appointment  occasioned  the  most  wide-spread 
surprise.  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  a  reputation 
throughout  the  world  as  a  political  reformer; 
Mr.  Payne  had  a  reputation  throughout  the 
country  as  a  dyed-in-the-wool  politician,  with 
a  politician's  traditional  contempt  for  reform. 
What  could  two  such  men  have  in  common? 

It  was  because  of  something  which  they  did 
not  have  in  common  that  Mr.  Payne  was  chosen. 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  self-confident  in  most  situa 
tions,  always  harbored  a  feeling  of  ignorance 
and  helplessness  about  politics  in  the  narrower 
sense;  and  when  Mr.  Smith  announced  his  pur 
pose  to  retire  the  President  decided  that  now 
was  the  time  to  bring  into  the  Cabinet  an  ele 
ment  it  utterly  lacked.  There  was  not  a  single 

92 


THE   CABINET   POLITICIAN 

practical  politician  in  the  group.  This  was  not 
surprising  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  McKin- 
ley,  who  had  called  it  together,  was  himself  by 
far  the  ablest  politician  in  the  United  States, 
and  needed  no  aid  in  the  line  of  his  own  spe 
cialty.  Mr.  Payne,  who  had  a  great  name  as 
a  party  manager  and  was  understood  to  have 
a  wonderful  grasp  of  detail,  was  accordingly 
summoned  to  the  vacant  place.  He  was  chair 
man  of  the  Republican  National  Executive 
Committee,  and  it  was  expected  that  his  coun 
sels  at  the  Cabinet  table  would  turn  the  scale 
on  mooted  points  of  policy  where  the  argu 
ments  pro  and  con  seemed  evenly  balanced. 
The  question  would  then  be  reduced  to:  "Other 
considerations  being  equal,  what  would  be  the 
expedient  course  to  take?"  And  Mr.  Payne's 
advice  would  settle  it. 

But  the  plans  of  Presidents  are  no  surer  of 
execution  than  those  of  other  men.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  must  soon  have  awakened  to  two  truths 
which  many  of  his  friends  had  already  tried 
in  vain  to  impress  upon  him:  first,  that  it  re 
quires  a  different  class  of  talents  to  handle  the 
petty  politics  within  a  party  and  to  handle  the 
larger  politics  of  a  whole  nation;  and,  second, 
that,  in  view  of  his  unparalleled  personal  popu- 

93 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


larity,  he  could  beat  the  professional  politicians 
at  their  own  game,  two  to  one. 

Mr.  Payne  had  been  all  his  life  a  party  man 
ager,  but  not  a  popular  leader.  The  subordi 
nates  in  his  own  party  organization  to  whom 
he  issued  an  order  knew  that  they  must  obey 
it  without  pausing  to  ask  questions.  If  he 
favored  seating  one  set  of  delegates  and  reject 
ing  another  set  who  were  knocking  at  a  con 
vention's  doors,  and  he  was  able  to  sway  the 
decision,  that  was  the  end  of  the  matter.  The 
result  might  excite  some  dissatisfaction  within 
the  party,  or  give  a  certain  faction  an  advantage 
in  the  next  primaries,  but  that  did  not  mean 
necessarily  a  change  of  party  fortunes  at  the 
polls.  When  he  came  into  the  Cabinet,  how 
ever,  a  wider  vista  of  possible  consequences 
opened  before  every  one  of  his  official  acts. 
Any  policy  he  mapped  out  would  affect  not 
merely  his  party  subordinates  or  a  party  fac 
tion  but  the  whole  American  people,  com 
prising  all  parties  and  all  factions. 

One  of  the  first  problems  which  presented 
itself  to  Mr.  Payne  was  the  Indianola  outrage. 
The  post-office  at  Indianola,  Miss.,  had  been 
presided  over  for  some  years,  and  with  entire 
acceptability  as  far  as  known,  by  Mrs.  Minnie 

94 


INDIANOLA   INCIDENT 


Cox,  a  colored  woman  of  good  repute.  A  re 
vival  of  race  proscription  which  broke  out  in 
the  winter  of  1901-02  caused  a  mob  to  collect 
and  threaten  Mrs.  Cox  with  violence  unless  she 
resigned  her  office.  She  was  not  conscious  of 
any  offense,  but  through  fear  sent  her  resigna 
tion  to  Washington  and  with  her  family  fled 
from  the  town. 

All  Mr.  Payne's  combativeness  came  to  the 
surface  at  once.  He  was  not  only  indignant  at 
the  poor  woman's  treatment,  but  he  recognized 
the  dramatic  features  of  the  situation.  He  was 
ready  to  proceed  to  any  lengths  in  reasserting 
the  majesty  of  the  Federal  Government.  Had 
he  been  President,  we  should  undoubtedly  have 
seen  Mrs.  Cox  drawn  from  her  place  of  refuge 
and  sent  back  to  Indianola  under  a  military 
escort,  and  a  cordon  of  troops  around  the  post- 
office  would  have  protected  its  occupants  and 
its  business  from  further  molestation  till  the  ex 
citement  had  died  down. 

He  was  not  President,  however.  The  man 
who  was  felt  not  a  whit  less  indignant,  but  mani 
fested  his  sentiment  in  a  way  that,  without  any 
sacrifice  of  impressiveness,  saved  the  dignity  of 
the  Government  and  raised  no  constitutional 
issues.  He  simply  closed  the  post-office,  and 
8  9S 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


allowed  the  citizens  of  Indianola  to  pay  for 
their  folly  by  going  five  miles  to  the  next  office 
for  their  mail.  The  punishment  fitted  the 
crime  to  a  dot:  a  community  which  had  re 
lapsed  into  barbarism  had  no  longer  any  claim 
upon  the  luxuries  that  accompany  modern  civi 
lization.  No  armed  force  was  sent  to  compel 
it  to  be  decent  against  its  will;  a  privilege  it 
had  enjoyed  while  decent  simply  dropped  out 
when  it  surrendered  its  self-respect. 

The  next  problem  which  came  before  Mr. 
Payne  was  the  cleansing  of  his  own  executive 
household.  I  refer  to  the  investigation  of  the 
scandals  in  the  postal  service  which  kept  the 
American  people  under  a  stress  of  mingled 
curiosity  and  disgust  for  the  better  part  of  the 
year  1903. 

It  is  but  just  to  say  at  the  outset  that  Mr. 
Payne  has  borne  in  this  matter  a  great  deal  of 
blame  which  he  does  not  deserve.  When  the 
charges  of  fraud  were  first  brought  to  his  notice 
he  carried  them  to  the  President  and  announced 
his  purpose  of  investigating  them  and  punish 
ing  any  wrongdoing  he  discovered.  The  only 
point  on  which  the  President  and  he  appear  to 
have  disagreed  in  judgment  was  the  method  of 
proceeding,  and  here  is  where  the  essential  dif- 


MR.   PAYNE'S   TRAINING 


ference  in  the  nature  and  training  of  the  two 
men  affected  their  points  of  view.  Mr.  Roose 
velt  had  been  throughout  his  career  fighting 
in  the  open  and  challenging  all  comers.  Mr. 
Payne  had  never  held  public  office,  but  had 
done  all  his  work  as  a  disciplinarian  within  the 
Republican  organization  and  his  fighting  from 
behind  the  party  breastworks.  When  a  season 
of  stump-speaking  was  to  begin,  he  had  pre 
pared  the  statistics  of  crime  among  the  Demo 
crats  and  the  history  of  numberless  virtuous  acts 
among  the  Republicans,  with  which  to  impress 
listening  crowds;  but  never  the  reverse.  If  an 
investigation  was  to  be  made  for  the  purpose  of 
collecting  material  for  the  next  campaign  book, 
it  was  never  his  own  party,  but  the  other,  that 
he  caused  to  be  investigated.  He  was  puzzled 
to  decide  just  how  to  go  at  the  task  of  raking 
over  the  misdeeds  of  his  Republican  associates. 
Who  could  tell  whither  the  trails  might 
lead?  Might  not  the  revelations  be  seized  by 
the  Democrats  and  used  as  campaign  capital? 
Would  it  not  be  best  to  have  all  the  house-clean 
ing  done  by  the  family,  and  within  the  family, 
and  its  results  known  to  the  family  alone? 
Grub  out  every  rootlet  and  shred  of  dishonesty, 
by  all  means;  but  would  not  needless  publicity 

97 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


give  rise  to  scandals,  and  scandals  damage  the 
party? 

The  President's  theory  was  that  no  amount 
of  publicity  could  possibly  damage  the  party, 
or  anybody  connected  with  it,  so  much  as  a  sus 
picion  in  the  popular  mind  that  the  Admin 
istration  was  drawing  a  cloak  over  crime. 
The  detective  machinery  must  be  set  to  work 
secretly,  of  course,  lest  some  of  the  offenders 
take  fright  prematurely  and  spread  the  alarm 
among  the  rest,  and  those  who  were  clever 
enough  should  be  able  to  cover  their  tracks  and 
baffle  pursuit.  But  if,  as  seemed  inevitable,  the 
facts  should  leak  out,  no  attempt  must  be  made 
to  deny  or  minimize  them;  to  mislead  the  peo 
ple  would  be  worse  than  advertising  the  whole 
business  to  the  world  at  first. 

Mr.  Payne's  lifelong  habit  of  sneering  at 
accusations  aimed  against  him  and  his,  how 
ever,  was  too  strong  to  be  overcome  in  an  in 
stant.  Before  he  was  fully  aware  of  what  he 
was  doing  he  had  begun  throwing  contempt 
upon  the  published  accounts  of  the  investiga 
tion  in  progress.  When  the  charges  of  Sey 
mour  W.  Tulloch  were  filed,  he  set  out  with 
an  assertion  that  they  did  not  amount  to  any 
thing,  and  then,  when  their  substance  had  found 


HOT-AIR"   CHARGES 


its  way  into  print  in  spite  of  him,  jauntily  dis 
missed  them  as  merely  "hot  air." 

No  extraordinary  keenness  of  insight  is 
needed  to  see  the  folly  of  such  an  attitude  when 
assumed  by  the  head  of  a  great  department 
toward  a  scandal  which  had  tainted  the  whole 
atmosphere  of  that  department.  The  time  for 
discovering  that  the  Tulloch  charges  were  only 
"hot  air"  would  have  come  when  the  charges 
had  been  examined  and  discredited  by  evi 
dence,  or  the  lack  of  it.  It  was  the  same  way 
at  every  stage  of  the  proceedings.  First  Mr. 
Payne  would  talk  to  no  one  about  what  was 
going  on,  then  he  would  go  to  the  opposite  ex 
treme  and  become  loquacious.  One  day  he 
would  insist  that  the  press  had  dragged  up  the 
whole  miserable  business  for  sensational  pur 
poses,  and  was  magnifying  molehills  into  moun 
tains;  the  next,  he  would  declare  that,  gross  as 
were  the  iniquities  already  brought  to  light,  he 
foresaw  worse  revelations  yet  to  come.  These 
shifts  of  position  were  attributed  in  some  quar 
ters  to  bad  faith  and  a  purpose  to  deceive  the 
public,  in  others  to  a  frequent  change  of  policy 
by  the  Administration.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  were  merely  the  fruit  of  Mr.  Payne's  idio 
syncrasies.  He  had  been  for  years  an  invalid, 

99 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


whose  illness  took  on  changeful  phases  from 
day  to  day.  It  might  find  him  in  good  spirits 
on  waking,  and  leave  him  in  deep  dejection  at 
bedtime.  One  week  he  needed  all  his  will 
power  to  force  himself  through  his  regular 
routine  of  duty,  the  next  would  see  him  as  eager 
as  a  fighting-cock.  Time-tried  campaigner  as 
he  was,  the  maker  and  destroyer  of  other  men's 
political  fortunes,  he  had  a  heart  as  tender  as 
a  woman's  in  the  presence  of  distress;  and  a 
fresh  discovery  that  some  trusted  employee  had 
been  leading  a  double  life  would  throw  over 
him  a  pall  of  depression  of  which  he  could  not 
relieve  himself  for  a  fortnight. 

Through  the  whole  of  this  trying  period  the 
single  prominent  figure  that  stood  always  in 
one  place,  with  face  turned  in  one  direction, 
was  the  President's.  His  policy  never  wavered, 
his  force  of  character  overrode  every  obstacle. 
Even  the  indefatigable  Bristow,  the  special  in 
vestigator  clothed  with  the  powers  of  detective, 
judge,  jury  and  executioner,  seemed  inclined 
to  pause  now  and  then  in  his  work  and  turn 
aside  for  a  moment  when  the  train  of  testi 
mony  bore  too  straight  toward  some  public 
officer  high  in  confidence;  at  once  would  come 
fresh  orders  from  the  White  House,  never  fired 

100 


THE   PRESIDENT'S  FIRMNESS 


into  the  air  for  the  benefit  of  the  outside  multi 
tude,  but  shot  right  at  the  mark,  like:  "Follow 
up  So-and-so";  "Do  not  let  up  on  such-and- 
such  a  line  of  search";  "The  enclosed  news 
paper  paragraph  suggests  a  new  lead;  get  your 
hands  on  everybody  concerned." 

When  the  prosecution  of  the  thieves  and 
grafters  seemed  to  lag  a  little  more  than  circum 
stances  justified,  and  the  District  Attorney  ex 
plained  that  the  delay  was  due  to  the  immense 
burden  of  work  thrown  upon  the  law-officers  of 
the  Government,  the  President  quietly  reached 
out  and  brought  to  their  aid  two  of  the  best 
lawyers  he  knew  in  private  life:  Charles  J. 
Bonaparte,  a  sworn  foe  to  spoilsmen  everywhere 
and  an  unsparing  critic  of  Federal  administra 
tions  in  the  past,  and  Holmes  Conrad,  a  stanch 
Democrat  of  the  old  school,  who  could  have  no 
compunctions  of  any  sort  in  hunting  down  Re 
publican  rogues.  All  the  "politics"  of  the 
situation,  as  far  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  see,  was 
the  politics  of  capturing  rascals  and  putting 
them  into  the  penitentiary  or  the  pillory,  re 
gardless  of  who  they  were  or  by  whom  ap 
pointed,  or  what  the  particular  influence  that 
still  stood  at  their  backs.  If  damage  were  to 
come  to  the  party,  it  would  come,  he  believed, 

101 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


from  having  rottenness  in  the  postal  service,  not 
from  digging  it  out. 

Mr.  Payne's  unfortunate  lack  of  discretion 
was  revealed  also  in  dealing  with  the  Dela 
ware  cases,  where  he  involved  the  President 
quite  needlessly  in  a  snarl  with  the  best  people 
of  the  country.  But  that  matter  must  be  left 
for  another  chapter. 


102 


CHAPTER   VII 

"THE  LARGER  GOOD"  AND  "THE  BEST  HE  COULD" 

The  Cuban  reciprocity  fight — Buying  coalers  for  the  navy — An 
attorney  rebuked — New  York  liquor  law  enforcement — The 
Shidy  case — Keeping  faith  with  a  scamp. 

ON  broad  lines,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  guided  in 
his  action  by  settled  policies;  as  to  the  details 
of  working  these  out,  he  turns  to  account  what 
ever  happens.  He  takes  men  as  he  finds  them, 
bolts  his  disappointments,  worships  no  fetishes. 
"Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,"  he  says,  "but  al 
ways  remember  your  limitations.  Strive  up 
ward,  but  realize  that  your  feet  must  touch  the 
ground.  In  our  Government  you  can  only 
work  successfully  in  conjunction  with  your  fel 
lows."  It  would  probably  be  safe  to  say  that 
he  never  laid  down  a  general  rule  which  he 
was  not  prepared  to  break  the  instant  he  saw  it 
blocking  the  path  to  an  important  accomplish 
ment,  or  what  he  calls  "the  larger  good."  He 
has  a  supreme  contempt  for  a  mere  paper  rec 
ord  of  consistency,  as  contrasted  with  an  his- 

103 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


torical  record  of  ends  actually  achieved;  and 
he  has  no  use  for  the  public  man  who,  finding 
it  impossible  to  do  ideally  the  best  thing,  has 
not  cheerfully  done  "the  best  he  could"  and 
thanked  God  for  that. 

President  Roosevelt,  in  his  first  annual 
message,  called  upon  Congress  to  enact  a  law 
authorizing  a  substantial  reduction  of  the  cus 
toms  tariff  on  Cuban  products  imported  into 
the  United  States.  A  President  ambitious  for 
a  paper  record  simply  would  have  made  the 
recommendation  and  then  thrown  the  blame 
upon  Congress  for  the  failure  to  carry  it  out. 
But  he  sought  results,  not  reasons  for  the  lack 
of  them.  When  Congress  seemed  loath  to  do 
anything,  he  stirred  it  up  with  a  special  mes 
sage.  In  the  first  communication  he  had  made 
a  simple  proposal  based  upon  the  idea  of  our 
winning  and  holding  Cuban  friendship;  in  the 
second,  he  based  his  plea  on  Cuba's  own  right 
to  tariff  concessions  in  exchange  for  what  she 
had  granted  to  us.  Still  there  was  no  response. 
At  the  next  session  the  plea  was  renewed  in  the 
annual  message.  When  it  became  apparent 
that  no  new  law  could  be  passed,  it  was  sug 
gested  to  him  that  a  treaty  might  be  negotiated. 

"Good,"  said  he,  "negotiate  a  treaty."  It 
104 


END,   NOT   MEANS 


made  no  difference  to  him  what  form  the  mat 
ter  took — he  had  set  out  to  get  tariff  concessions 
for  Cuba,  and  he  was  bound  to  have  them  or 
find  out  why.  Henry  T.  Oxnard,  the  North 
western  beet  magnate,  who  had  been  fighting 
against  any  concessions  to  cane-sugar,  came  to 
the  White  House  one  morning  to  see  how  the 
land  lay.  I  was  in  the  room  when  the  Presi 
dent  walked  up  to  him  and  warned  him,  with 
considerable  vigor  of  utterance,  that  the  penalty 
of  his  obstructing  the  effort  to  procure  justice 
for  Cuba  through  reciprocity  legislation  would 
be  a  treaty,  in  which,  of  course,  no  provision 
would  be  made  for  the  differential  duties  on 
sugar,  about  which  Mr.  Oxnard  was  supposed 
to  feel  some  concern. 

"Are  you  opposed,  Mr.  President,  to  the 
abolition  of  the  differentials?"  inquired  Mr. 
Oxnard. 

"As  I  have  repeatedly  said,"  was  the  Presi 
dent's  answer,  "it  does  not  make  one  iota  of  dif 
ference  to  me  whether  they  go  off  or  stay  on. 
What  I  want  is  to  see  the  United  States  carry 
out  its  moral  pledge  to  Cuba,  and  this  fight  will 
be  kept  up  forever,  if  necessary!" 

It  was  in  the  same  spirit  that,  after  failing 
at  two  regular  sessions  to  get  what  he  felt  was 

105 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


right  and  just,  he  called  an  extraordinary  ses 
sion  of  the  Senate  and  held  it  down  to  its  work 
till  it  had  voted  its  approval  of  a  treaty  con 
tingent  only  on  the  confirmatory  action  of  Con 
gress  as  a  whole.  This  accomplished,  the  Pres 
ident  took  pains  to  let  it  be  widely  known  that 
he  purposed  convening  Congress  before  the 
regular  meeting  day  in  December,  and  no  pro 
test  moved  him  from  his  plan. 

What  Mr.  Roosevelt  got  out  of  all  this  was 
not  what  he  set  out  to  get,  but  as  much  as  Con 
gress  would  give  him.  He  did  "the  best  he 
could,"  and  was  content.  He  has  been  widely 
criticized  for  not  compelling  Congress  to  do 
its  full  duty  by  withholding  patronage  from 
those  members  who  did  not  yield.  Perhaps 
that  would  have  been  a  shrewd  move,  but  he 
would  have  felt  awkward  and  out  of  place  in 
making  it.  He  took  the  course  which  com 
mended  itself  to  him — not  necessarily  the  course 
which  seemed  best  to  others — and  for  it  he  was 
willing  to  be  responsible.  This  has  always 
been  his  attitude  toward  public  obligations.  He 
has  never  hugged  to  his  soul  the  vain  delusion 
that  he  could  accomplish  moral  miracles  in  an 
age  whose  saints  and  prophets  do  most  of  their 
crying  in  the  wilderness. 

106 


POSSIBLE  ALTERNATIVES 

As  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  it  was 
a  part  of  his  duty  to  purchase  coaling  ships  for 
the  Spanish  War.  Persons  with  such  craft  to 
sell  came  to  him  with  proposals  which  would 
have  sickened  a  man  with  a  weaker  stomach. 
They  knew  that  in  this  emergency  they  had  the 
Government  at  their  mercy.  He  knew  it,  too. 
The  hulks  they  offered  were  in  many  cases  fit 
only  for  a  marine  bone-yard,  and  they  de 
manded  fancy  prices  even  for  these.  More 
over,  it  was  "Take  it,  or  leave  it,"  with  them; 
they  were  not  in  a  mood  to  haggle  with  a 
purchaser  whom  they  knew  to  be  in  dire 
straits. 

Alternative  courses  were  open  to  Mr.  Roose 
velt.  He  could  reject  all  overtures  and  pub 
lish  the  names  of  the  men,  the  quality  of  the 
vessels  offered,  and  the  prices,  in  a  list  which 
would  be  spread  as  a  newspaper  sensation  from 
coast  to  coast.  This  would  hold  the  whole 
buccaneering  crew  up  to  public  obloquy  for  a 
while,  but  the  chances  were  that  it  would  not 
bring  two  boats  down  to  a  price  commensurate 
with  their  value  or  attract  any  more  decent  bid 
ders.  He  would  become  theatrically  famous 
as  a  "ring-smasher"  and  a  "watch-dog"  and  all 
that;  but  the  popular  indignation,  at  a  time  so 

107 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


crowded  with  stirring  events,  would  cool  and 
be  forgotten  in  forty-eight  hours,  leaving  no 
solid  results  behind.  And  Heaven  only  knew, 
if  these  boats  were  refused,  where  any  good  ones 
were  coming  from  to  take  their  places. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  he  accepted  the  offers, 
it  was  with  the  full  foreknowledge  that  when  the 
war  was  over  the  hulks  would  have  to  be  sold 
for  anything  they  would  bring,  and  that  the 
difference  between  their  cost  and  their  selling 
price  would  be  charged  against  the  record  of 
his  administration.  It  might  even  happen  that 
he  would  be  accused,  like  many  another  ex 
ecutant  as  honest  of  purpose  as  he,  of  con 
nivance  at  working  off  worthless  stuff  upon  the 
Government. 

He  was  not  the  man  to  waste  much  time 
figuring  on  the  consequences  in  this  way.  The 
one  fact  which  stared  him  in  the  face  was  that 
the  Government  must  have  coalers,  and  right 
away.  So  he  bought  what  he  could  not  avoid 
buying,  and  he  paid  what  he  was  compelled  to 
pay.  But  the  fact  that  he  did  not  exploit  the 
situation  in  order  to  "make  a  record"  when  it 
would  not  only  do  no  good  but  also  give  com 
fort  to  the  enemy,  did  not  mean  that  he  was 
swallowing  his  official  grievances  without  a 

1 08 


LECTURING  AN   ATTORNEY 

grimace.  I  burst  in  upon  him  one  day  at  the 
department  without  warning,  and  found  him 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  indulging  in  some 
very  spirited  talk  to  a  visitor.  As  I  was  hastily 
withdrawing,  he  called  me  back. 

"Stay  here,"  said  he;  "I  want  to  see  you." 
Then  he  abruptly  turned  from  me  and  again 
faced  the  third  party,  in  whom  I  recognized, 
as  the  light  fell  on  his  face,  a  lawyer  of  some 
prominence  and  an  office-holder  under  a  former 
administration.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  teeth  were 
set,  and  very  much  in  evidence,  in  the  peculiar 
way  they  always  are  when  he  is  angry.  His 
spectacle-lenses  seemed  to  throw  off  electric 
sparks  as  his  head  moved  quickly  this  way  and 
that  in  speaking;  and  his  right  fist  came  down 
from  time  to  time  upon  the  opposite  palm  as 
if  it  were  an  adversary's  face.  And  this  was 
about  the  way  he  delivered  himself: 

"Don't  you  feel  ashamed  to  come  to  me  to 
day  with  another  offer,  after  what  you  did  yes 
terday?  Don't  you  think  that  to  sell  one  rotten 
ship  to  the  Government  is  enough  for  a  single 
week?  Are  you  in  such  a  hurry  that  you 
couldn't  wait  even  over  Sunday  to  force  your 
damaged  goods  upon  the  United  States?  Is  it 
an  excess  of  patriotism  that  brings  you  here 

109 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


day  after  day,  in  this  way,  or  only  your  realiza 
tion  of  our  necessities?" 

"Why,  our  clients — "  began  the  lawyer. 

"Yes,  I  know  all  about  your  clients,"  burst 
in  the  Assistant  Secretary.  "I  congratulate 
them  on  having  an  attorney  who  will  do  work 
for  them  which  he  wouldn't  have  the  face  to 
do  for  himself.  I  should  think,  after  having 
enjoyed  the  honors  you  have  at  the  hands  of  the 
Government,  you'd  feel  a  keen  pride  in  your 
present  occupation!  No,  I  don't  want  any 
more  of  your  old  tubs.  The  one  I  bought  yes 
terday  is  good  for  nothing  except  to  sink  some 
where  in  the  path  of  the  enemy's  fleet.  It  will 
be  God's  mercy  if  she  doesn't  go  down  with 
brave  men  on  her — men  who  go  to  war  and  risk 
their  lives,  instead  of  staying  home  to  sell  rotten 
hulks  to  the  Government." 

The  air  of  the  attorney  as  he  bowed  him 
self  out  was  almost  pitiable.  The  special  glint 
did  not  fade  from  Mr.  Roosevelt's  glasses,  nor 
did  his  jaws  relax  or  his  fist  unclench,  till  the 
door  closed  on  the  retreating  figure.  Then  his 
face  lighted  with  a  smile  as  he  advanced  to 
greet  me. 

"You  came  just  in  time,"  he  cried.  "I 
wanted  you  to  hear  what  I  had  to  say  to  that 

no 


CLOSING   SUNDAY   SALOONS 

fellow;  not" — and  here  his  voice  rose  on  the 
high  falsetto  wave  which  is  always  a  sign  that 
he  is  enjoying  an  idea  while  framing  it  in  words 
— "not  that  it  would  add  materially  to  the  sum 
of  your  pleasure,  but  that  it  would  humiliate 
him  to  have  any  one  else  present  while  I  gave 
him  his  punishment.  It  is  the  only  means  I 
have  of  getting  even." 

One  of  the  enterprises  on  which  Mr.  Roose 
velt  had  set  his  heart  when  he  accepted  the 
Police  Commissionership  in  New  York  was  the 
closing  of  the  saloons  on  Sunday.  This  was 
not  because  he  was  a  teetotaler  himself,  or  an 
extremist  as  to  Sunday  observance.  But  he  was 
an  out-and-out  believer  in  the  rule  of  law,  and 
if  a  law  was  on  the  statute-book,  and  he  was 
appointed  a  public  agent  to  enforce  it,  enforced 
it  should  be.  When  the  State  got  tired  of  the 
operation  of  any  law,  it  was  privileged  to  re 
peal  it;  but  he  would  have  no  hand  in  keeping 
it  alive  but  crippled. 

Moreover,  the  half-way  measures  formerly 
pursued  had  not  only  put  a  premium  on  law- 
breaking,  but  lent  a  certain  dignity  to  black 
mail  by  making  it  an  official  trade.  The  saloon 
keepers  who  were  able  and  willing  to  bribe  the 
police,  or  produce  so  many  votes  on  election 
9  in 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


day,  for  the  privilege  of  keeping  a  side-door 
open,  had  been  allowed  to  do  so,  while  those 
who  were  too  decent  or  too  poor  were  either 
compelled  to  close  or  brought  under  the  heavy 
hand  of  the  law. 

There  was  no  uncertain  ring  about  the 
course  he  took  in  breaking  up  this  condition  of 
things.  It  startled  the  machine  politicians  of 
his  own  party,  who  charged  to  it  and  to  his 
general  attitude  toward  the  enforcement  of  the 
liquor  laws  the  success  of  Tammany  Hall  in 
the  fall  elections  that  year.  It  is  all  very  well 
to  say,  as  they  have  said  repeatedly,  that  such  a 
reform  as  he  instituted  does  no  good  in  a  city 
like  New  York,  which,  as  soon  as  it  passes  un 
der  another  rule,  slips  back  into  its  old  course 
as  if  there  had  never  been  any  interruption;  but 
every  thinking  man  knows  that  such  reasoning 
is  false.  New  York's  police  system  has  never 
got  back  to  where  it  was  before  Mr.  Roosevelt 
took  hold  of  its  administration.  Till  then  good 
citizens  had  been  beguiled  with  the  plea  that 
enforcement  of  the  liquor  laws  was  an  impos 
sibility;  he  showed  that  it  was  not.  He  did 
not  set  up  a  perfect  reform  mechanism,  one 
which  would  run  itself;  but  he  proved  that  cer 
tain  limitations  formerly  accepted  without  ques- 

112 


TO   PROTECT   THE   CHILDREN 

tion  did  not  exist  except  in  timid  minds,  and 
that  all  that  was  needed  was  a  man  at  the  helm 
with  the  strength  and  the  nerve  to  disregard 
them  and  try  for  something  better.  Having 
demonstrated  the  fact  that  the  liquor  laws  can 
be  enforced  a  good  deal  more  effectually  than 
the  laws  against  forgery  or  theft,  Commissioner 
Roosevelt  did  leave  his  native  city  in  better  con 
dition  than  he  found  it.  He  had  at  least  set  a 
pace  which  none  of  his  successors  can  shirk  on 
the  ground  of  its  impracticability. 

It  will  probably  never  be  possible  to  recon 
cile  to  the  minds  of  many  upright  New  York 
ers  the  means  adopted  by  the  Police  Board  dur 
ing  this  period,  chiefly  at  the  instance  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  to  obtain  evidence  against  the  saloon 
keepers  who  made  a  practise  of  selling  liquor 
to  minors.  Here  was  another  case  where  the 
lesser  good,  in  his  judgment,  had  to  give  way 
to  the  larger.  The  traffic  in  strong  drink  among 
children  had  swelled  to  hideous  proportions. 
The  best  estimates  the  board  could  obtain  indi 
cated  that  more  than  half  the  habitual  drunk 
ards  who  figured  in  the  New  York  police  courts 
had  become  such  before  they  had  reached  the 
age  at  which  they  could  lawfully  buy  intoxi 
cants.  Appalling  crimes  and  catastrophes  oc- 

"3 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


curred  continually  which  could  be  traced  to 
the  drunkenness  of  the  child  victims. 

A  boy  who  was  regularly  sent  to  buy  liquor 
for  the  operatives  in  the  factory  where  he  was 
employed  acquired  a  taste  for  it  himself,  and, 
falling  into  a  drunken  stupor  one  day  in  an 
empty  building,  was  eaten  alive  by  rats.  It  was 
such  horrible  examples  of  the  evil,  together 
with  the  earnest  pleas  of  good  men  and  women 
who  labored  among  the  poor  in  the  slums,  that 
settled  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  mind  the  purpose  to 
root  out  the  abuse  by  any  device  within  his 
reach,  however  liable  to  misconstruction.  Of 
course,  the  only  way  to  do  this  was  to  capture 
the  miscreants  who  habitually  sold  liquor  to 
children  and  send  them  to  prison,  till  enough 
had  been  punished  to  terrorize  any  other  bar 
keepers  who  were  liable  to  commit  the  same 
crime.  Equally  of  course,  an  adult  could  not 
procure  the  necessary  evidence  unaided,  neither 
could  a  child  whom  a  dram-seller  did  not  know 
and  whom  he  might  therefore  suspect  of  being 
a  spy.  The  only  means  open  was  to  take  a  child 
who  had  formerly  purchased  liquor  at  a  certain 
place,  send  it  again  on  the  same  errand,  and 
make  it  furnish  the  proof  required  as  the  basis 
of  a  warrant  for  the  dealer. 

114 


THE  REAL  QUESTION 


One  of  the  police  magistrates  delivered  a 
severe  lecture  from  the  bench  in  condemnation 
of  this  method  of  breaking  up  the  traffic,  on 
the  ground  that  the  statute  forbidding  the  sale 
made  it  an  offense  for  any  one  to  be  a  party  to 
it,  and  that  the  Police  Board  was  violating  the 
law  as  much  as  the  liquor  seller.  Construing 
the  law  by  its  letter  rather  than  its  spirit,  that 
may  have  been  true;  but  the  alternative  pro 
posed  by  this  judge  and  other  critics — that  an 
officer  in  citizen's  clothing  could  plant  himself 
in  the  saloon,  watch  when  the  children  came 
in  for  their  liquor,  and  pounce  upon  the  bar 
keeper  in  the  act  of  selling — was  obviously  im 
practicable,  and  founded  upon  a  false  impres 
sion  of  the  way  such  sales  were  conducted. 
The  practise  of  the  offending  saloons  was  to 
admit  child  customers  one  by  one  into  a  narrow 
hallway,  where  they  were  out  of  sight  of  the 
ordinary  patrons;  this  rendered  it  out  of  the 
question  for  any  but  a  child  who  actually 
bought  liquor  to  bring  its  seller  to  justice.  The 
means  which  had  to  be  employed  was  deplora 
ble  ;  but  the  question  of  morals  to  be  settled  was 
not  whether  it  was  right  in  itself  to  send  a  child 
after  liquor,  but  whether  it  was  better  to  do  this 
a  few  times  than  to  let  the  traffic  go  on  indefi- 

"5 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


nitely,  as  it  had  been  going  on  for  years  in  spite 
of  all  the  legislation  that  could  be  invented  for 
its  suppression. 

When  he  was  Civil-Service  Commissioner 
Mr.  Roosevelt  often  had  occasion  to  call  into 
play  his  faculty  for  discriminating  between  the 
larger  and  the  lesser  good.  One  day  a  Wash 
ington  newspaper  published  a  series  of  sensa 
tional  charges  against  the  commission,  alleging 
among  other  things  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  had 
shown  himself  as  bad  a  spoilsman  as  any  of  the 
objects  of  his  criticism,  having  gone  place-hunt 
ing  for  a  man  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  rogue.  "I 
demand  an  investigation,"  was  the  commis 
sioner's  prompt  response,  and  he  repeated  it  till 
he  got  what  he  wanted.  The  whole  commis 
sion  was  under  fire,  as  some  of  the  charges  were 
of  the  volley  order.  To  recall  all  of  these 
would  make  too  long  a  story,  but  the  one  spe 
cially  aimed  at  Mr.  Roosevelt  concerned  his 
conduct  in  investigating  the  affairs  of  the  post- 
office  at  Milwaukee,  where  trickery  and  fraud 
of  the  worst  sort  had  been  practised  in  the  ap 
pointment  of  clerks  without  reference  to  the 
merit  system.  It  did  not  take  Mr.  Roosevelt 
long,  after  entering  on  this  inquiry,  to  discover 
that  all  the  trails  of  guilt  led  right  to  the  door 

116 


TELL  THE   TRUTH 


of  one  Shidy,  a  clerk  and  a  member  of  the  local 
Civil-Service  Board  who  had  access  to  the  reg 
ister  of  eligibles.  He  therefore  induced  Shidy 
to  meet  him  for  a  confidential  talk.  For  some 
time  they  had  a  fruitless  sparring  match  of  ques 
tions  and  answers.  The  commissioner  con 
vinced  himself  that  the  man  knew  more  than 
he  dared  to  tell,  and,  after  exhausting  other 
means  of  getting  at  this,  came  down  upon  him 
with  a  flat  demand  for  a  statement. 

"You  are  a  servant  of  the  Government,"  said 
he,  "and  it  is  your  duty  to  stand  by  the  Govern 
ment  in  its  attempt  to  procure  essential  evi 
dence.  I  want  nothing  but  the  truth,  but  I 
want  every  word  of  that." 

"I  am  in  ill  health  and  poor,"  was  Shidy's 
answer,  "and  I  can  not  afford  to  lose  my  place 
in  the  post-office,  as  I  certainly  shall  if  I  un 
bosom  myself." 

"I  will  take  care  of  that,"  replied  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  "You  shall  not  be  punished  for  tell 
ing  the  truth.  Trust  me  to  see  that  the  Gov 
ernment  does  its  duty  by  you,  if  you  do  your 
duty  by  the  Government." 

The  result  of  this  colloquy  was  a  complete 
confession  by  Shidy  of  a  most  appalling  series 
of  frauds  practised  upon  the  local  civil-service 

117 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


system.  The  eligible  registers  had  been  "pad 
ded"  with  names  which  had  no  business  there; 
the  order  of  standing  of  candidates  after  ex 
amination  had  been  altered  so  as  to  get  this  man 
into  the  service  and  bar  that  man  out;  and  so 
forth.  The  worst  of  the  whole  matter  was  that 
Shidy  unblushingly  described  just  how  he  did 
these  things  himself.  He  professed  to  have 
done  them  at  the  instigation  of  the  postmas 
ter;  but  the  actual  work  of  padding  and  shift 
ing  had  been  performed  by  his  own  hands, 
with  the  collusive  knowledge  of  certain  other 
parties. 

The  young  commissioner,  who  had  hardly 
expected  such  a  revelation  when  he  promised 
immunity  to  the  witness,  stood  by  his  word,  dis 
agreeable  as  it  was  to  do  so;  and  when  Shidy, 
after  paving  the  way  for  the  postmaster's  re 
moval,  was  himself  dismissed  from  office,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  tried  hard  to  have  him  reinstated. 
Failing  in  this,  he  went  to  Superintendent  Por 
ter  of  the  Census  Office,  and  with  the  aid  of  his 
colleague,  Mr.  Thompson,  procured  a  clerkship 
there  for  his  protege. 

When  the  framework  of  this  episode  came 
out  at  the  congressional  investigation,  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  enemies  believed  that  they  had  got 

118 


STANDING  BY   HIS   RECORD 

him  into  a  corner  and  that  he  would  have  to 
find  some  shuffling  excuse  for  lending  himself 
to  a  scheme  to  keep  such  a  scamp  in  the  Gov 
ernment's  employ  with  a  full  knowledge  of  his 
guilt.  On  the  contrary,  the  commissioner  went 
upon  the  stand  and  freely  told  the  whole  story 
from  beginning  to  end.  He  defended  his 
course  by  saying  that,  without  direct  testimony, 
any  investigation  by  the  commission  would  be 
a  waste  of  time ;  the  only  way  to  get  the  neces 
sary  evidence  in  this  instance  was  to  promise 
that  a  wrongdoer  who  knew  the  truth  should 
not  suffer  for  telling  it;  and  however  repugnant 
it  might  be  to  him  personally  to  carry  out  such 
a  pledge  after  ascertaining  all  the  facts,  he  felt 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  the  Government  to  do  so. 
It  was  a  case  where  the  larger  good  overshad 
owed  the  lesser,  and  he  was  prepared  to  stand 
by  his  record. 

So  impressed  was  the  congressional  com 
mittee  with  the  candor  and  boldness  of  his  atti 
tude,  that  it  declared  in  its  report  that  the  con 
duct  of  Messrs.  Roosevelt  and  Thompson  was 
not  exceptional,  nor  did  it  "tend  to  the  demoral 
ization  of  the  service.  It  would  have  been 
ground  for  criticism  if,  instead  of  keeping  faith 
with  the  witness,  they  had  permitted  those  who 

119 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


concealed  the  truth  to  escape  and  retain  their 
positions,  and  had  suffered  Shidy,  who  had  been 
instrumental  in  exposing  the  fraud  and  bring 
ing  the  truth  to  light,  to  be  punished  for  so 
doing." 


1 20 


CHAPTER   VIII 

OUR   BOSS   SYSTEM   AND    MR.    PLATT 

Overgrowth  of  Senate  influence — A  middle  course — Typical  cases 
— How  bad  selections  are  foisted  on  a  President — New  York 
custom-house  changes — The  Immigration  Service  controversy 
— A  clean  sweep. 

WHEN  Theodore  Roosevelt  became  Presi 
dent  there  was  a  loud  cry  of  joy  among  the 
civil-service  reformers  who  had  mourned  the 
growing  dominance  of  senatorial  "bosses"  in 
the  matter  of  appointments.  The  day  of  boss- 
ism  was  ended,  they  exclaimed,  for  at  last  we 
had  a  man  in  the  White  House  who  would  fight 
the  Senate.  They  forgot,  perhaps,  that  such  an 
experiment  cost  President  Johnson  an  impeach 
ment  trial;  that  it  cost  Grant  the  loss  of  more 
than  one  Cabinet  adviser;  that  it  cost  Garfield 
his  life.  Cleveland  fought  the  most  powerful 
of  the  Democratic  Senators  till  his  party  went 
to  pieces,  though  he  was  always  morally  right 
and  the  Senators  wrong  in  the  matters  over 
which  they  quarreled.  Roosevelt  cherishes  an 

121 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


almost  morbid  horror  of  doing  anything  to  split 
his  party.  His  theory  of  "the  larger  good"  is 
dominant  in  that  feeling  as  elsewhere. 

Hence  he  has  been  trying  to  take  a  middle 
course  between  the  two  extremes  of  subjection 
and  defiance.  He  has  received  the  Senators 
on  an  even  footing,  but  not  strictly  on  terms  of 
equality;  for,  while  willing  to  have  their  ad 
vice  and  to  recognize  their  right  to  proffer  it, 
he  has  by  no  means  bound  himself  to  accept  it. 
He  has  kept  steadily  before  his  own  eyes  and 
theirs  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  vests  in  him, 
and  in  him  alone,  both  the  power  and  the  re 
sponsibility  of  appointment.  To  the  mind  of 
an  enthusiast  this  seems  a  subtle  distinction;  to 
one  that  comes  daily  into  contact  with  the  ma 
chinery  of  politics  and  statecraft  it  is  entirely 
comprehensible.  Ideally,  the  only  policy  for 
a  high-minded  President  to  pursue  is  to  de 
mand  perfection  in  his  appointees  and  refuse 
to  be  moved  till  he  gets  it;  practically,  this  is 
out  of  the  question.  In  the  first  place,  human 
perfection  does  not  exist.  In  the  second  place, 
the  Archangel  Gabriel  could  not  get  the  post- 
office  at  Pottstown  if  the  two  Senators  from  his 
State  should  oppose  confirmation;  for  by  the 
unwritten  rule  of  senatorial  courtesy  all  the 

122 


A  MIDDLE  COURSE 


other  Senators  would  stand  by  these  two.  This 
might  seriously  embarrass  matters  in  the  Gov 
ernment,  especially  if  the  personage  whom  he 
was  to  replace  happened  to  be  Beelzebub  or 
Apollyon.  The  President  might  stand  on  his 
rights  to  the  end  of  his  term,  but  somebody 
would  have  to  run  the  office  he  was  trying  to 
fill;  and  that  somebody  must  either  be  an  un 
derling — in  which  case  the  efficiency  of  its  ad 
ministration  would  be  doubtful — or  its  hold 
over  chief,  with  an  excellent  chance  that  its 
administration  would  be  bad. 

Here  is  a  sorry  range  of  choice,  but  it  is 
one  with  which  a  President  is  not  infrequently 
faced.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  lacks  by  nature  the 
peculiar  kind  of  tact  which  smoothed  so  com 
fortably  the  relations  of  President  McKinley 
with  Congress,  adopted  at  the  outset  a  policy  of 
candor  with  the  Republican  Senators  who 
called  to  advise  him,  informing  them  that  in 
matters  of  patronage  he  intended 

1 i )  To  consult  them  in  advance  as  to  selec 
tions  from  their  several  States; 

(2)  To    make    his    own    selections,    never 
theless,   and  be  responsible  to  the  people  for 
these ; 

(3)  To  hold  Senators  answerable  to  him 

123 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


for  the  consequences  where  he  accepted  their 
advice,  and  to  resent  suitably  any  imposition  on 
his  confidence; 

(4)  To  require  every  subordinate  of  his 
administration  to  show  a  proper  respect  for  the 
senatorial  office,  no  matter  who  filled  it. 

Some  foreshadowing  of  this  program  had 
been  given  by  his  administration  as  Governor 
of  New  York.  Before  asking  for  the  suffrages 
of  the  people  for  that  office,  he  had  taken  pains 
to  announce,  so  conspicuously  that  none  should 
have  an  excuse  for  not  knowing,  his  purpose 
to  consult  on  all  important  undertakings  with 
the  recognized  head  of  the  Republican  party 
in  the  State.  If  the  people  had  understood  his 
announcement  to  mean  that,  in  voting  for 
Roosevelt  by  name,  they  were  voting  for  Sen 
ator  Platt  as  the  actual  Governor  of  New  York, 
there  is  little  doubt  that  Roosevelt  would  have 
been  defeated.  As  it  was,  it  unquestionably 
cost  the  candidate  some  votes,  for  which  his  only 
compensation  was  the  sense  that  he  had  dealt 
squarely  with  the  people  and  not  allowed  them 
to  cast  their  ballots  under  any  misapprehension 
of  his  position. 

He  shocked  many  of  his  admirers  later  by 
breakfasting  with  Platt.  I  never  exactly  un- 

124 


CONSULTING   THE  BOSS 


derstood  why  he  wished  to,  unless  it  were  to 
save  time  when  they  had  something  to  talk  over, 
for  they  are  hardly  to  be  rated  as  companion 
spirits  socially;  but  neither  could  I  understand 
why  there  should  have  been  a  commotion 
over  the  fact,  any  more  than  if  he  had  invited 
"Ben"  Tillman  to  dine  privately  at  the  White 
House  or  accepted  the  hospitalities  of  the  Wild 
Man  of  Borneo.  The  atmosphere  in  which  one 
takes  one's  physical  sustenance  does  not  neces 
sarily  affect  one's  morals  or  manners.  "Not 
that  which  goeth  into  the  mouth  defileth  a 
man,"  says  the  Good  Book;  and  if  one's  diges 
tion  is  all  right  and  the  communications  at  table 
do  not  influence  unfavorably  one's  later  con 
duct,  I  do  not  see  where  any  great  damage  is 
done  by  observing  the  common  amenities. 

When  it  came  to  the  business  of  the  State, 
neither  the  preelection  announcement  nor  the 
postelection  breakfast  appears  to  have  put  Gov 
ernor  Roosevelt  at  a  serious  disadvantage.  The 
Platt  machine  wanted  to  name  Francis  Hen- 
dricks  for  superintendent  of  public  works;  the 
Governor  said:  "No.  He  will  fit  some  other 
place  very  well,  but  not  that  one.  We  must 
command  unreserved  public  confidence  for  our 
rehabilitation  of  the  State  canal  system.  Mr. 

125 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Hendricks  comes  from  a  neighborhood  which 
was  the  center  of  activities  of  the  old  canal  ring. 
However  excellent  his  administration  might  be, 
a  multitude  of  people  would  be  prejudiced 
against  it  from  the  start." 

So  he  began  his  hunt  for  a  practical  en 
gineer.  I  happen  to  know  that  he  tried  to  get 
General  Francis  V.  Greene,  but  could  not. 
Whom  else  he  invited  I  can  not  say  positively. 
The  task  offered  might  well  have  appalled  a 
man  with  keen  sensibilities,  for  it  meant  a  thor 
ough  cleaning  up  of  the  old  regime  before  inau 
gurating  the  new.  Finally  he  settled  upon 
Colonel  John  N.  Partridge,  of  Brooklyn,  who, 
if  not  the  ideal  man  for  the  place,  was  probably 
the  best  available.  The  Senator  gave  a  hesita 
ting  consent  to  the  appointment,  and  then  it  was 
formally  announced  in  the  newspapers  as  made 
at  his  instance.  The  Governor  entered  no  pro 
test;  that  was  part  of  the  game. 

"Lou"  Payn,  long  a  power  in  New  York 
Republican  politics  and  a  permanent  stand-by 
of  Platt's,  was  superintendent  of  insurance.  The 
Governor  had  no  fancy  for  an  office-holder 
of  just  Payn's  antecedents,  and  felt  satisfied  that 
it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  as  well  as  righteous 
ness  to  get  rid  of  him.  He  accordingly  called 

126 


FILLING   STATE   OFFICES 


the  boss  into  consultation.  The  boss  thought  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  dismiss  Payn. 

"That  isn't  the  point,"  was  the  Governor's 
answer;  "what  I  want  to  find  out  is  who  is  the 
best  man  I  can  get  to  succeed  him." 

If  this  didn't  end  the  talk  about  Payn's  re 
tention,  Mr.  Platt  knew  that  the  next  sentence 
surely  would,  so  he  did  not  press  the  subject 
further.  Between  them  they  canvassed  several 
names.  Some  suggested  by  the  Governor  were 
dropped  when  the  boss  assured  him  that  they 
could  not  pass  the  Senate;  some  suggested  by 
the  boss  were  dropped  because  the  Governor 
would  not  stand  for  them.  Presently  it  was  de 
cided  that  if  the  State  machine  regarded  Fran 
cis  Hendricks  as  good  enough  for  one  superin- 
tendency  it  ought  to  think  him  good  enough 
for  another;  and  if  the  only  reason  the  Gov 
ernor  had  shied  at  him  before  was  because  of 
the  public's  nervousness  over  the  canal  question, 
there  was  no  such  obstacle  in  the  way  of  his 
appointment  to  the  Insurance  Department.  So 
in  went  Hendricks's  name  to  the  Senate,  and 
was  duly  gazetted  to  the  world  as  "presented 
by  Senator  Platt."  Here  again  the  Governor 
got  "not  the  best,  but  the  best  he  could." 

Such  relations,  to  paraphrase  his  own  say- 
10  127 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ing,  may  not  be  the  pleasantest,  but  they  are  the 
pleasantest  a  chief  executive  can  hope  for  un 
der  the  existing  system  of  divided  control  in 
matters  of  patronage.  Moreover,  the  bosses  are 
not  alone  to  blame  for  the  non-independence  of 
the  executive.  Take  the  comparatively  recent 
case  of  the  assistant  treasurership  at  New  York 
city  as  an  example.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
adverse  comment  on  the  appointment  of  Will 
iam  Plimley  to  this  office,  especially  when  the 
fact  came  out — and  it  was  a  fact  this  time — 
that  Plimley  was  Platt's  own  choice  and  that 
the  President  knew  nothing  of  him  till  the  Sen 
ator  proposed  his  name.  How,  cried  the  com 
mentators,  could  a  President  allow  himself  thus 
to  be  led  by  the  nose,  especially  with  respect 
to  an  office  so  identified  with  the  financial  wel 
fare  of  the  Government! 

Most  of  the  persons  who  found  fault  with 
Plimley's  nomination  were  presumptively  igno 
rant  of  the  efforts  the  President  had  made  to 
get  somebody  whom  he  did  know  to  take  the 
office.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  not  a  word  of  ad 
verse  criticism  would  have  been  passed  upon 
the  nomination  of  George  R.  Sheldon  or  of 
Robert  Bacon;  yet  both  these  gentlemen  were 
selected  and  invited,  but  declined  to  serve. 

128 


A   LAST   RESORT 


Meanwhile  our  most  important  Subtreasury 
was  suffering  for  lack  of  a  head.  Every  day 
was  increasing  the  inconvenience  of  the  situa 
tion.  The  President  was  in  a  corner.  Mr. 
Platt  came  forward  with  the  suggestion  of  a 
name.  It  was  strange  to  the  President's  ears, 
but  he  was  willing  to  take  the  Senator's  word 
for  Plimley's  character  and  ability,  especially 
when  it  was  backed  by  letters  from  a  former 
member  of  President  McKinley's  Cabinet  and 
other  eminent  men. 

The  commercial  world  in  New  York  had 
made  no  suggestions,  though  its  interests  were 
more  involved  than  any  others  in  the  choice  of  a 
model  assistant  treasurer.  Plimley  was  there 
fore  accepted  by  default,  as  it  were.  When  the 
best  citizens  of  any  community  can  suspend 
their  busy  self-seeking  long  enough  to  counsel 
their  chief  magistrate  themselves,  and  when 
men  of  standing  are  public-spirited  enough  to 
take  office  as  a  duty,  we  shall  witness  fewer 
Plimley  fiascos  and  hear  less  about  the  evils  of 
boss  dictation. 

During  his  term  as  Governor  Mr.  Roose 
velt  had  always  within  reach  one  or  more 
men  who  belonged  politically  to  the  same 
class  with  himself,  and  consulted  with  them 

129 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


as  an  antidote  to  his  consultations  with  the 
machine.  Elihu  Root  and  Seth  Low  were 
both  present  at  the  council  of  Republicans  he 
called  in  1898  to  consider  the  policy  of  the 
newly  elected  State  administration.  With  Mr. 
Root  he  kept  in  close  touch  through  the  first 
stages  of  his  governorship,  and  then  Mr.  Root 
went  to  Washington  to  become  Secretary  of 
War.  The  renewal  of  their  relations  in  Wash 
ington  two  years  later  led  them  back,  after  a 
little,  to  the  same  intimate  footing,  the  Secre 
tary  becoming  the  President's  most  valued  ad 
viser  on  general  subjects  and  having  quite  as 
much  to  say  as  Mr.  Platt  about  the  distribu 
tion  of  New  York  patronage. 

The  greatest  clash  between  Messrs.  Platt 
and  Roosevelt  after  the  latter  became  Presi 
dent  occurred  over  that  perennial  source  of  fac 
tional  controversy,  the  New  York  custom-house. 
George  R.  Bidwell,  the  Collector,  was  an  organ 
ization  man  who  had  crossed  swords  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt  in  the  old  times;  he  was  a  stanch 
supporter  of  Senator  Platt.  Wilbur  F.  Wake- 
man,  the  Appraiser,  belonged  to  the  "McKinley 
Republican"  contingent  of  1896  who  stood  out 
at  the  St.  Louis  Convention  against  the  Platt 
machine.  Bidwell,  although  having  a  strong 

130 


NEW  YORK  CUSTOM-HOUSE 

champion  in  Secretary  Gage,  did  not  enjoy 
President  Roosevelt's  confidence;  Wakeman 
had  made  himself  obnoxious  to  a  large  and 
influential  element  among  the  New  York  im 
porters  by  overzeal,  and  to  the  Secretary  and 
Senator  Platt  by  talking  too  freely  to  the  news 
papers.  The  two  customs  officers  were  fre 
quently  at  odds  with  each  other.  The  Presi 
dent  announced  to  the  Senator  one  day  that 
he  had  decided  to  let  Bidwell  go.  Mr.  Platt 
insisted  on  his  retention.  The  President  was 
firm;  the  only  concession  he  would  make  was 
to  consider  the  Senator's  advice  as  to  the  choice 
of  a  new  collector.  The  Senator  could  not  see 
why  Bidwell  should  go  and  Wakeman  be  re 
tained.  The  President  answered  that  the  wel 
fare  of  the  service  would  probably  be  promoted 
by  a  general  clearing  out,  and  that  he  should 
drop  both  men.  Then  they  proceeded  to  can 
vass  names  for  the  collectorship. 

It  was  the  old  story  of  propose  and  reject, 
propose  and  reject,  first  on  one  side  and  then 
on  the  other.  Finally  the  President  named 
Nevada  N.  Stranahan,  a  member  of  the  New 
York  Legislature  and  a  loyal  organization  man, 
but  one  who  had  stood  by  him  well  during  his 
administration  at  Albany,  showing  intelligence, 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


personal  honesty  and  public  spirit.  As  a 
friend  remarked  on  hearing  who  had  been 
chosen,  Mr.  Stranahan  was  a  man  who  would 
side  with  the  President  and  against  Mr.  Platt 
every  time  an  issue  was  fairly  drawn  between 
right  and  wrong  and  the  President  was  in  the 
right;  when  there  was  no  such  issue,  but  merely 
a  question  of  tactical  expediency,  he  would 
probably  side  with  the  Senator  against  the 
President.  This  was  a  condition  with  which 
the  President  was  not  disposed  to  quarrel,  and 
when  the  Senator  gave  a  reluctant  consent  to 
the  change  he  was  authorized  to  convey  the 
President's  formal  invitation  to  Mr.  Stranahan. 
The  appraisership  was  filled  soon  afterward  by 
a  promotion  within  the  service;  George  W. 
Whitehead,  who  had  made  a  good  record  as  an 
appraiser  in  Porto  Rico,  was  called  to  New 
York.  Both  the  appointees  have  given  satis 
faction,  and  matters  have  run  very  smoothly  at 
the  custom-house  since  their  installation. 

Two  more  changes  at  New  York  caused  a 
little  friction  between  the  President  and  the 
Senator  in  passing.  One  was  the  appointment 
of  James  S.  Clarkson  as  surveyor  of  the  port. 
Clarkson  was  a  politician  of  the  old  school,  a 
former  editor  in  Iowa,  a  member  of  a  well- 

132 


OTHER  DIFFERENCES 


known  family  of  abolitionists,  and  a  stalwart 
supporter  of  the  reconstruction  policy  of  Con 
gress  in  the  Southern  States.  The  news  that 
he  was  to  be  appointed  caused  an  equal  com 
motion  among  the  civil-service  reformers  and 
in  the  Platt  camp.  Clarkson  had  disposed  of 
his  Western  interests  some  years  before  and  re 
moved  to  New  York,  but  had  not  become  identi 
fied  with  the  party  organization  in  his  new 
home;  hence  the  protest  of  the  machine.  He 
had  always  been  a  rank  opponent  of  the  merit 
system,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  once,  as  de 
scribed  in  another  chapter,  been  moved  to  ad 
minister  to  him  publicly  a  stinging  rebuke  for 
his  spoils  proclivities;  hence  the  amazement  of 
the  reformers. 

Clarkson,  on  account  of  his  relations  to  the 
race  question,  had  a  large  acquaintance  among 
the  negroes  of  the  South.  The  theory  was 
therefore  advanced  by  the  political  prophets 
that  the  President  intended  making  him  the  in 
strument  of  building  up  a  "Roosevelt  machine" 
among  the  negroes,  in  opposition  to  the  machine 
which  Mr.  Hanna  was  believed  to  control. 
Those  who  know  best  the  general  policy  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt  pay  no  attention  to  stories  of  his  de 
sire  for  a  personal  machine  of  any  sort.  But 

133 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


it  is  fair  to  assume  that  Mr.  Clarkson's  famil 
iarity  with  the  negroes  may  be  made  useful  in 
counteracting  the  falsehood  set  afloat  among 
the  ignorant  blacks,  that  the  President  is  desert 
ing  them  in  their  hour  of  trial  because  he  has 
refused  to  force  negro  appointees  upon  unwill 
ing  white  communities  without  regard  to  char 
acter  or  fitness  for  official  responsibility. 

The  other  notable  disagreement  occurred 
over  the  reorganization  of  the  immigration 
office  in  New  York.  The  commissioner  in 
charge  of  the  station  at  Ellis  Island,  through 
which  most  of  the  poor  and  ignorant  aliens 
come  into  the  country,  was  Thomas  Fitchie. 
No  charges  of  misconduct  had  been  filed  against 
him,  but  conditions  at  the  station  were  far  from 
satisfactory,  and  the  President  did  not  regard 
him  as  a  sufficiently  energetic  and  aggressive 
man  to  carry  through  the  reforms  which  it  was 
plain  would  be  needed  soon.  His  deputy,  Ed 
ward  F.  McSweeney,  had  been  in  office  a  long 
time  and  was  the  real  chief  executive.  Mc 
Sweeney  was  entrenched  very  securely  in  the 
good-will  of  the  steamship  companies  and  of 
the  local  missionaries.  But  he  had  got  into  a 
wrangle  with  the  Commissioner-General  of  Im 
migration,  Terence  V.  Powderly;  criminations 


IMMIGRATION   SERVICE 


and  recriminations  were  flying  back  and  forth, 
and  the  Ellis  Island  station  and  the  bureau  in 
Washington  were  pulling  so  constantly  in  op 
posite  directions  that  the  service  was  becoming 
demoralized. 

The  President  resolved  to  apply  his  favorite 
panacea  for  such  difficulties,  a  clean  sweep. 
Powderly  appealed  to  Quay,  and  Quay  to  the 
President.  Meanwhile  the  friends  of  Fitchie 
and  McSweeney,  including  not  only  Mr.  Platt 
but  Mr.  Lodge  and  some  of  the  other  Senators 
who  were  most  intimate  personally  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  were  aroused  in  his  behalf.  The 
air  fairly  shook  with  the  din  of  battle.  The 
President,  however,  refused  to  be  moved  from 
the  position  he  had  taken.  He  had  compara 
tively  little  difficulty  in  dealing  with  the  Wash 
ington  end  of  the  complication,  for  the  labor 
organizations,  in  whose  interest  Powderly  had 
been  appointed,  were  well  satisfied  with  the 
choice  of  Frank  P.  Sargent,  chief  of  the  Broth 
erhood  of  Railway  Firemen,  to  succeed  him; 
but  at  the  New  York  end  there  was  serious 
trouble  in  finding  just  the  man  required  to  take 
charge  of  the  station.  The  work  there  was 
bound  to  be  disagreeable  if  faithfully  per 
formed;  resourcefulness,  tact,  humanity,  pa- 

133 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tience,  were  as  essential  as  honesty,  and  the  com 
pensation  was  pitifully  small.  The  President 
went  over  nearly  the  entire  list  of  his  per 
sonal  friends  who  possessed  the  necessary  traits 
combined  with  an  independent  income,  but 
he  could  find  none  whose  patriotic  altruism 
seemed  equal  to  the  test. 

At  last  an  acquaintance  who  had  been  called 
to  aid  in  the  search  suggested  the  name  of  Will 
iam  Williams,  a  lawyer  of  good  repute,  young 
enough  to  adapt  himself  to  the  task,  and  with 
the  grit  to  undertake  a  public  service  in  which 
the  duties  were  hard  and  the  rewards  few  and 
uncertain.  He  was  appointed  commissioner, 
and  the  President's  old  friend  Joseph  E.  Mur 
ray,  who  had  been  employed  at  the  station  once 
before,  was  installed  as  deputy.  The  former 
system,  under  which  the  chief  of  the  office  was 
the  nominal  and  his  assistant  the  active  admin 
istrator,  was  reversed,  and  a  place  which  had 
been  a  political  snug  harbor  was  swept,  gar 
nished,  and  set  in  running  order  on  a  strict 
merit  basis. 


136 


CHAPTER   IX 

SOME  OF  THE  OTHER  BOSSES 

State  dictators  in  the  Senate — Quay  and  his  machine — The  typical 
case  of  McClain  and  McCoach — Cold  comfort  for  warring 
bosses — Addicksism,  Byrne,  and  Miss  Todd. 

THE  Republican  bosses  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  as  we  see  their  names  paraded  in  the 
newspapers,  are  Platt  of  New  York,  Quay  of 
Pennsylvania,  Hanna  of  Ohio,  Burton  of 
Kansas,  and  a  handful  of  lesser  dignitaries. 
Hanna's  bossism  is  held  somewhat  in  check  by 
the  opposition  of  his  colleague,  Senator  Foraker, 
and  by  the  paramount  boss-ship  of  the  "King 
of  Cincinnati,"  George  B.  Cox.  Burton  is  com 
paratively  little  known  in  the  East.  Platt  and 
Quay  are  the  pair  who  challenge  most  atten 
tion  from  the  average  opponent  of  bossism  on 
principle.  He  never  can  understand  how  a 
virtuous  President  can  maintain  any  relations, 
personal  or  otherwise,  with  such  men.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  President  feels  that  if  his  critics 
could  stand  in  his  place  for  a  while  and  get  a 

'37 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


view  of  the  whole  situation  instead  of  a  sin 
gle  part  they  would  be  less  severe  in  their 
judgments. 

The  Quay  machine  in  Pennsylvania  was 
disagreeably  in  evidence  during  the  early  part 
of  the  Roosevelt  administration,  to  the  con 
sternation  of  the  anti-Quay  Republicans  and 
Independents.  William  H.  Hicks,  postmaster 
of  Philadelphia,  against  whom  the  Civil- 
Service  Commission  had  reported  to  President 
McKinley  after  an  investigation  of  charges 
preferred  through  the  agency  of  some  of  Mr. 
Quay's  lieutenants,  was  dropped  from  his  office. 
The  same  sort  of  negotiation  was  opened  with 
Senators  Quay  and  Penrose  as  we  have  seen 
conducted  with  Mr.  Platt.  The  Senators  were 
informed  that  the  President  had  no  disposition 
to  quarrel  with  them,  and  that  he  would  name 
a  postmaster  acceptable  to  them  if  they  would 
settle  upon  a  man  who  was  unexceptionable 
personally.  After  some  beating  of  the  bushes, 
their  choice  finally  fell  upon  Clayton  Mc- 
Michael,  a  member  of  a  highly  respectable 
Philadelphia  family,  but  one  always  associated 
in  public  affairs  with  the  organization  now 
controlled  by  Quay.  Internal  Revenue  Col 
lector  McClain  gave  way  in  like  manner  to  one 

138 


McCLAIN   AND  McCOACH 


of  Quay's  most  consistent  and  serviceable  fol 
lowers,  William  McCoach. 

The  Pennsylvania  reformers  generally  were 
willing  to  ignore  the  McMichael  appointment 
in  view  of  the  attitude  of  the  Civil-Service 
Commission  toward  Hicks,  but  against  the 
change  from  McClain  to  McCoach  they  re 
volted,  McCoach  having  won  their  hostility  by 
his  career  as  one  of  the  city  fathers  of  Philadel 
phia.  The  version  of  the  incident  which  found 
its  way  into  the  press  was  that  the  President 
had  notified  McClain,  whose  first  four  years 
were  about  expiring,  that  it  would  not  be  worth 
while  to  renew  his  official  bond,  as  McCoach 
had  been  promised  the  collectorship — all  be 
cause  McClain  had  bolted  the  regular  Repub 
lican  ticket  at  the  late  municipal  election,  and 
the  Administration  intended  to  "send  bolters  to 
the  rear  and  keep  none  but  stanch  party  men  in 
office  thereafter!" 

The  absurdity  of  such  a  statement  of  the 
attitude  of  a  man  who  has  all  his  life  insisted 
on  the  divorce  of  municipal  from  national  poli 
tics  hardly  calls  for  serious  comment;  but  jus 
tice  demands  that  the  truth  have  at  least  an 
equal  showing  with  the  falsehood.  The  first 
time  this  question  arose  during  his  term  Presi- 

139 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


dent  Roosevelt  explained  to  his  Cabinet  very 
clearly  his  opinion  as  to  the  part  Federal  office 
holders  should  play  in  politics.  They  might 
vote  just  as  they  pleased,  and  they  were  not  ex 
pected  to  keep  their  minds  a  blank,  or  sit  by 
like  mumchances  while  other  men  were  tem 
perately  discussing  questions  of  policy  about 
which  the  national  parties  differed;  but  as  serv 
ants  of  the  whole  people  they  were  expected  to 
be  civil  even  to  their  adversaries,  to  do  noth 
ing  which  could  be  a  cause  of  offense  to  the 
feelings  of  others,  and  in  no  way  to  obtrude 
their  views  where  this  would  be  indecorous. 
Above  all,  the  rule  was  laid  down  that  where 
a  factional  fight  was  going  on  within  the  Re 
publican  party,  not  one  of  these  men  must  do 
anything  to  embroil  the  Administration  with 
the  Senators  and  Representatives  with  whom 
it  must  live  and  do  business  for  four  years. 

Presently  came  along  the  municipal  strug 
gle  in  Philadelphia.  Simultaneously  there  was 
one  in  the  President's  home  city,  New  York. 
The  President  kept  his  hands  severely  off  both. 
Seth  Low,  who  was  making  the  campaign  for 
mayor  in  New  York,  was  his  old  and  valued 
friend,  and  doubtless  a  hunt  through  Mr.  Low's 
private  letter-files  would  show  whether  or  not 

140 


OFFICE-HOLDERS   IN   POLITICS 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  a  New  Yorker,  felt  an  in 
terest  in  the  fusion  movement;  but  the  pub 
lic  press  and  records  might  be  searched  in 
vain  for  a  proof  either  pro  or  con.  The  luxury 
of  participation  which  the  President  denied  to 
himself  and  his  Secretary  of  War  in  New 
York,  was  the  measure  of  his  restriction  upon 
his  subordinates  in  the  Federal  service  in  Phila 
delphia — even  upon  Postmaster-General  Smith, 
a  Philadelphian;  and  any  one  who  knows  how 
keenly  Mr.  Roosevelt  enjoys  what  he  calls  a 
"brush"  now  and  then  must  appreciate  the  ex 
tent  of  this  self-sacrifice. 

An  officer  of  the  postal  service  in  Philadel 
phia  who  wished  to  go  upon  the  stump  in  cham 
pionship  of  the  Quay  machine's  municipal 
ticket,  took  the  precaution  to  ask  the  Postmas 
ter-General's  permission  to  do  so.  Mr.  Smith 
answered  that  he  must  not;  that  he  was  at  lib 
erty  to  cast  any  ballot  he  preferred,  but  he 
must  keep  out  of  the  public  fight.  McClain 
also  consulted  Mr.  Smith,  as  a  Philadelphian 
and  an  anti-Quay  Republican,  as  to  whether  he 
had  better  take  part  against  the  machine  ticket. 
The  Postmaster-General  advised  him  strongly 
in  the  negative,  saying  that  he  should  himself 
abstain,  for  motives  of  decorum,  from  active 

141 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


participation,  though  he  should  vote  according 
to  his  conscience,  and  that  every  other  Federal 
office-holder  would  be  protected  in  the  enjoy 
ment  of  the  same  privilege.  McClain  thought 
the  matter  over,  decided  to  have  a  slash  at  the 
organization  with  which  he  had  regularly 
trained  till  they  quarreled,  and  entered  the  cam 
paign.  The  machine  was  victorious.  When 
the  time  came  to  consider  whether  McClain 
should  continue  in  office,  Quay  and  his  col 
league  put  in  a  protest.  McClain,  they  in 
sisted,  had  gone  out  of  his  way  to  make  himself 
offensive  to  them;  the  President,  under  the  rule 
he  had  himself  laid  down  to  govern  such  cases, 
seemed  to  have  but  one  thing  left  to  do.  Of 
course,  McClain  claimed  to  have  been  ill- 
treated.  But  he  had  been  warned  that  one  who 
draws  the  sword  must  not  whimper  if  marked 
to  perish  by  the  sword;  he  had  seen  fit  to  ignore 
the  warning,  and  by  parity  of  reasoning  the 
President  disregarded  the  whimper. 

Who  should  take  McClain's  place?  The 
Senators  named  a  man.  The  President,  who 
knew  their  candidate  by  reputation,  dismissed 
the  suggestion  as  not  worth  considering.  Then 
McCoach  was  put  forward.  The  President 
did  not  know  him,  so  he  allowed  the  name  to 

142 


COLLEAGUES   AT   ODDS 


slip  into  the  newspapers  and  waited  some  days 
to  watch  the  effect;  but  no  charges  were  filed 
against  the  proposed  appointee,  beyond  a  ref 
erence  to  the  fact  that  he  had  long  been  a  friend 
of  Quay's.  This,  however  unfavorably  it 
might  affect  a  private  mind,  could  hardly  be 
put  down  as  a  public  offense,  for  it  would  dis 
qualify  two-thirds  of  the  United  States  Senate. 
Still,  on  general  principles  and  without  con 
senting  to  promise  anything,  the  President  re 
quired  Quay  and  Penrose  to  bring  him  certifi 
cates  of  character  for  McCoach  from  prom 
inent  Philadelphians.  The  testimonials  were 
soon  forthcoming,  bearing  signatures  of  judges 
and  business  men,  and  McCoach's  commission 
went  to  him  by  an  early  mail. 

Once  in  a  while  the  President  gets  tired  of 
the  bosses,  whom,  like  the  poor,  he  has  always 
with  him.  It  is  bad  enough  when  the  Senators 
from  a  State  agree  in  their  recommendations, 
and  he  has  to  make  himself  accountable  to  the 
people  of  the  country  for  the  appointment  of 
some  man  whom  he  has  never  seen,  on  the  say-so 
of  two  other  men  whom  he  wishes  he  need  not 
see  so  often.  But  when  these  two  disagree  in 
opinion  and  fall  out  personally,  and  run  to  him 
with  their  several  grievances  and  backbitings, 
11  H3 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


his  sarcasm  is  apt  to  come  into  play.  One  day 
a  brace  of  such  antagonists,  whom  I  shall  des 
ignate  as  A and  B ,  came  into  his  ante 
room  and  waited  for  him  through  a  very  long 
and  tedious  hour.  When  he  appeared  they 
rose  and  greeted  him  simultaneously.  As  their 
quarrel  had  reached  a  stage  where  they  were 
scarcely  on  speaking  terms,  they  had  taken 
seats  on  opposite  sides  of  the  room.  He  looked 
quizzically  from  one  to  the  other,  as  if  trying 
to  recall  something.  Then  he  addressed  Sen 
ator  A : 

"You  have  come  to  see  me  about  that  post- 
office?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  President,"  answered  the  Senator. 

"You  still  want  Thompson  appointed?" 

"I  do." 

"Don't  you  know  that  Senator  B ,"  ges 
turing  with  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder  at 
A 's  hostile  colleague,  "says  that  Thomp 
son  ought  to  be  in  the  penitentiary,  and  that  he 
can  produce  the  facts  to  prove  it?" 

"I  know  that,  Mr.  President;  and  I  have 
here  the  evidence  to  show  that  Jones,  whom  my 
colleague  is  supporting,  ought  to  be  in  the  peni 
tentiary.  We  might  as  well  drop  the  peniten 
tiary  question." 

144 


A   HAPPY   SOLUTION 


"Oh,  dear,  no — bless  you,  no!"  cried  the 
President,  his  face  illuminated  with  its  first 
gleam  of  pleasure  since  the  interview  began; 
"you  have  only  just  opened  it.  See  here, 

B ,"  calling  up  the  other  Senator,  "A— 

says  he  has  proof  enough  to  lock  up  your  friend 
Jones,  and  you  say  you  have  proof  enough  to 
lock  up  his  friend  Thompson.  Now,  we  can 
settle  this  post-office  fight  in  short  order.  If 
both  of  you  will  turn  your  papers  over  to  the 
Attorney-General,  we'll  leave  him  to  decide 
whether  Thompson  or  Jones  shall  be  prose 
cuted.  If  either  man  can  manage  to  keep  out 
of  prison  when  Knox  gets  after  him  he  must 
be  a  pretty  good  citizen,  and  I  promise  to  give 
him  the  post-office.  How  is  that?" 

But  now  and  then  I  have  heard  him  say  of 
a  boss,  "On  the  whole,  I've  come  rather  to  like 
him";  or,  "He's  not  such  a  bad  fellow,  I  find, 
after  you  have  cracked  his  shell" ;  or  of  some 
special  act  of  a  boss,  "That  was  pretty  square, 
when  you  remember  where  it  came  from."  For, 
to  give  the  devil  his  due,  even  this  class  of 
gentry  have  their — moments.  The  present 
writer  has  fought  against  bosses  and  bossism  for 
one-third  of  a  century,  yet  he  is  bound  in  truth 
to  say  that  his  experience  has  at  times  known 

14S 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


some  pleasant  surprises.  It  was  the  late  Daniel 
Manning,  denominated  by  the  Republican 
orators  of  his  period  uthat  prince  royal  of 
spoilsmen/'  who  tried  to  get  Alexander  Agassiz 
for  superintendent  of  the  United  States  Coast 
Survey.  It  was  Senator  Gorman  who  urged 
most  assiduously  the  appointment  of  Oscar  S. 
Straus  as  minister  to  Turkey.  It  was  "Tom" 
Platt  who  stood  out  longest,  single-handed, 
against  the  choice  of  a  certain  New  York  man 
for  the  Cabinet,  objecting  to  him  because  he 
was  a  flatulent  humbug  although  a  notorious 
idolizer  of  Senators.  I  once  knew  "Matt" 
Quay  to  crawl  out  of  a  sick-bed  and  go  in  search 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to  prevent  an 
appointment  which  would  hurt  the  Indians, 
although  he  did  not  know  the  proposed  ap 
pointee,  had  nothing  against  him  personally, 
and  was  in  no  way  concerned  with  the  office  or 
the  rival  candidates.  Again  and  again  I  have 
seen  appeals  made  with  success  to  the  good  in 
stincts  of  bosses  in  Congress,  and  their  advocacy 
of  a  worthy  measure  procured  even  against 
what  appeared  to  be  their  selfish  interests.  I 
have  known  this  to  happen  after  vain  efforts 
had  been  made  to  arouse  some  of  the  "unco 
guid"  from  their  timid  sluggishness.  Polit- 

146 


DELAWARE   POLITICS 


ical  virtue  and  personal  force  are  not  always 
wedded;  neither,  by  the  same  token,  are  con 
scienceless  politics  and  humane  impulse  always 
divorced.  A  President  often  has  more  need 
to  guard  against  a  Senator's  pity  for  some 
ineffective  creature  financially  stranded  than 
against  having  a  corrupt  man  forced  upon 
him. 

While  the  popular  protest  has  been  chiefly 
directed  against  the  influence  of  the  senatorial 
bosses,  one  boss  who  has  never  worn  the  toga, 
but  has  spent  a  lifetime  chasing  it,  has  given 
the  President  more  trouble  than  all  the  others 
put  together.  This  is  J.  Edward  Addicks  of 
Delaware.  He  is  reputed  to  be  very  rich,  and 
enjoys  a  unique  distinction  as  an  object  of 
attack  by  the  entire  reform  element  in  American 
politics,  who  charge  him  with  keeping  control 
of  the  Republican  organization  of  his  State  by 
a  liberal  use  of  money.  Thanks  to  the  bitter 
ness  of  the  feeling  against  him  among  the  op 
posing  faction,  and  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
pressed  his  demand  for  a  senatorship  with  such 
persistency,  Delaware  was  for  nearly  four  years 
without  representation  in  the  upper  chamber 
of  Congress;  for  the  Legislature  was  steadily 
Republican,  and,  although  he  could  not  him 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


self  command  votes  enough  to  elect,  he  would 
not  let  any  one  else  have  an  election. 

There  being  thus  no  Senators  from  Dela 
ware  to  boss  the  patronage,  Addicks  has  claimed 
the  right  to  speak  for  the  party  as  a  Senator 
commonly  would.  He  succeeded  so  far  as  to 
procure  recognition  for  the  delegates  of  his 
faction  in  the  Republican  national  convention 
of  1900 — which  made  the  faction  "regular" — 
and  he  was  able  to  show  in  1902  that  William 
M.  Byrne,  his  candidate  for  Representative, 
running  against  another  Republican  nominated 
by  the  opposing  faction,  had  rolled  up  a  vote 
of  nearly  two  to  one.  This  was  a  demonstra 
tion  of  his  strength,  though  the  split  among  the 
Republicans  sent  a  Democrat  to  Congress. 

It  was  inconceivable  to  the  bulk  of  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt's  friends  all  over  the  Union  that 
with  his  antecedents  as  a  political  reformer  he 
could  maintain  any  relations  whatever  with 
Addicks  or  the  Addicks  following;  and  the 
prophecy  was  freely  made  that,  when  the  time 
should  come  for  a  formal  alignment,  the  Presi 
dent  would  be  found  siding  with  the  anti- 
Addicks  Republicans.  This  view  received 
some  encouragement  when,  a  vacancy  occurring 
in  the  post-office  at  Wilmington,  Mr.  Roosevelt 

148 


THE   BYRNE  CASE 


appointed  a  member  of  the  anti-Addicks  fac 
tion  postmaster.  But  a  few  months  later  an 
event  occurred  which  set  the  whole  country 
agog,  in  the  nomination  of  Byrne,  already  men 
tioned,  to  be  district  attorney. 

The  case  had  one  peculiar  feature.  Byrne 
had  formerly  been  district  attorney  by  appoint 
ment  of  President  McKinley  as  an  anti-Addicks 
man,  but  had  gone  over  to  the  other  faction  in 
the  midst  of  his  term.  Prior  to  this  defection 
no  one  had  raised  any  objection  to  him.  He 
was  ambitious  to  enter  Congress,  and  Addicks 
consented  to  his  having  the  "regular"  nom 
ination.  President  Roosevelt,  though  he  had 
known  Byrne  for  some  years  and  liked  him  per 
sonally,  warned  him  that  if  he  were  going  to 
become  a  candidate  for  Congress  he  must  resign 
his  attorneyship,  as  it  would  be  unseemly  for 
him,  in  view  of  the  quarrel  within  the  party  in 
Delaware,  to  take  the  stump  in  his  own  behalf 
while  holding  such  an  office. 

Byrne  resigned  and  made  a  spirited  cam 
paign.  About  that  time  the  Washington  Gov 
ernment  was  bending  all  its  energies  to  getting 
rid  of  the  rule  of  the  friars  in  the  Philippine 
Islands.  It  was  most  anxious  to  impress  good 
Catholics  everywhere  with  the  fact  that  it  was 

149 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


waging  no  war  of  religious  proscription,  but 
trying  rather  to  help  the  missionary  efforts  of 
their  Church  by  weeding  out  a  vicious  system 
which  had  done  more  than  anything  else  to  pro 
mote  schism  among  the  islanders.  Byrne  was 
a  Catholic,  and  could  talk  to  his  fellow  believ 
ers  as  no  Protestant  could.  He  improved  the 
opportunity  offered  by  his  electioneering  activi 
ties  to  explain  and  defend  the  Government's 
policy.  This  greatly  pleased  the  President, 
who,  when  the  campaign  ended  in  his  defeat, 
named  him  for  restoration  to  his  old  place. 

The  fact  that  he  had  become  a  supporter  of 
Addicks  and  was  nevertheless  to  be  appointed 
to  office  excited  all  the  uproar,  and  quite 
drowned  out  public  consideration  of  any  other 
circumstance  in  his  career.  Complaints  of  his 
neglect  of  his  duties  as  district  attorney  under 
his  former  commission  began  to  pour  into 
Washington;  the  press  rang  with  the  incident 
for  some  weeks ;  resolutions  denunciatory  of  the 
President  were  adopted  by  various  reform  bod 
ies  ;  and  in  every  way  the  popular  feeling  about 
Addicks  and  Addicksism  made  itself  manifest. 
In  the  midst  of  the  turmoil,  which  broke  out 
during  the  President's  temporary  absence  from 
the  capital,  Postmaster-General  Payne,  known 

150 


T^ttttl 
THE   GUX  EOOM  AT    SAGAMORE  HILL. 


STICKING  TO   HIS   MAN 


as  the  expert  politician  of  the  Cabinet,  made 
the  mistake  of  attempting  to  explain  to  the 
newspapers  that  the  President  was  only  treat 
ing  Addicks  to  the  same  recognition  accord 
ed  to  other  heads  of  regular  party  organiza 
tions. 

Far  from  acting  as  a  palliative,  this  state 
ment  merely  increased  the  excitement.  Mr. 
Payne  could  not  understand  why  it  should. 
He  had  all  his  life  been  dealing  with  politicians 
on  the  cold  business  basis  of  so  much  recogni 
tion  for  so  many  votes;  and  he  was  aware  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  whether  gratified  or  not  by  the 
figures,  had  been  astonished  at  the  magnitude 
of  the  Addicks  following  as  revealed  by  the 
latest  election  returns,  although  nearly  every 
sop  of  Federal  patronage  had  been  thrown  to 
the  minority  faction  on  the  bare  ground  that 
Addicks  was  Addicks. 

The  President,  on  his  return  to  the  White 
House,  lost  no  time  in  making  it  known  that 
reasons  entirely  disconnected  with  Byrne's  fac 
tional  affiliations  would  have  moved  him  to 
make  the  reappointment  in  any  event.  As  those 
reasons  still  remained  potent  in  his  mind,  he 
did  not  change  his  purpose.  As  soon  as  Con 
gress  assembled  he  sent  Byrne's  name  to  the 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Senate.  The  Judiciary  Committee  voted  to  re 
port  the  nomination  adversely.  A  short  extra 
session  of  the  Senate  followed,  and  in  went 
Byrne's  name  again,  but  once  more  came  ad 
journment  without  confirmation.  The  Presi 
dent  persisted  and  made  a  recess  appointment, 
writing  at  the  same  time  a  letter  to  the  appointee 
which  said  among  other  things:  "Keep  clear  of 
factional  politics.  Confine  your  attention  to 
making  the  best  record  as  district  attorney  that 
has  been  made  by  any  district  attorney  of  Dela 
ware.  Show  neither  fear  nor  favor  in  anything 
you  do.  I  have  liked  you  and  I  think  well  of 
you,  but  under  the  circumstances  of  your  ap 
pointment  and  the  way  in  which  it  was  fought, 
I  have  a  right  to  demand  that  you  walk  even 
more  guardedly  than  the  ordinary  public  offi 
cial  walks,  and  that  you  show  yourself  a  model 
officer  in  point  of  fearlessness  and  integrity,  in 
dustry  and  ability." 

Byrne  retained  his  office  only  a  few  months 
and  then  resigned  without  making  any  pub 
lication  of  his  reasons.  It  is  generally  sup 
posed  that  he  was  tired  of  the  controversy 
aroused  by  his  case,  and  did  not  care  to  carry 
it  into  the  Senate  again  at  the  next  session. 

The  uproar  over  Addicks  broke  out  once 
152 


LOGIC   OF   THE   TODD   CASE 

more  in  the  summer  of  1903,  when  Postmaster- 
General  Payne  removed  Miss  Todd,  the  post 
master  at  Greenwood,  Del.,  because  she  was 
distasteful  to  Senator  Alice.  Mr.  Allee  was 
one  of  two  Senators  elected  early  in  that  year 
through  a  truce  between  the  Republican  fac 
tions  in  the  Legislature,  each  faction  choos 
ing  a  Senator  and  Allee  being  the  choice  of 
the  Addicksites.  The  male  members  of  Miss 
Todd's  family  were  rather  conspicuously  identi 
fied  with  the  anti-Addicks  element. 

Mr.  Payne,  in  the  same  blundering  way  as 
before,  began  to  issue  "statements."  He  an 
nounced  first  that  Miss  Todd  was  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  postmaster,  but  that  the  two  Sen 
ators  from  Delaware  had  arranged  to  divide 
the  patronage  between  them  on  territorial  lines, 
that  this  office  fell  within  Mr.  Alice's  area,  and 
that  Mr.  Allee  had  called  for  a  new  postmas 
ter.  When  this  brought  down  upon  his  head 
a  storm  of  popular  criticism  he  fell  back  upon 
another  excuse,  saying  that  Miss  Todd  had 
allowed  her  office  to  be  used  as  a  political  head 
quarters  for  the  anti-Addicks  factionists,  to  the 
damage  of  good  discipline.  She  stoutly  denied 
the  charge,  and  the  public  at  large  sided  with 
her,  naturally  assuming  that  the  Postmaster- 

153 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


General  would  not  have  made  two  dissonant 
apologies  for  the  same  act  if  his  conscience  had 
been  clear. 

Thus  the  matter  stood  when  the  attention 
of  the  President  was  called  to  it.  He  made 
some  inquiries  on  his  own  account,  and  found 
two  or  three  reputable  witnesses  who  insisted 
that  Miss  Todd  had  shown  disrespect  to  the 
Senator,  while  others  of  equal  credibility  stood 
ready  to  make  oath  that  she  had  always  be 
haved  with  perfect  decorum.  Such  an  abso 
lute  conflict  of  testimony  as  this  placed  him 
in  a  most  uncomfortable  position.  Had  he 
been  consulted  before  the  Postmaster-General 
acted  he  would  not  have  considered  the  case 
against  Miss  Todd  strong  enough  to  warrant 
her  dismissal;  as  she  was  already  out,  however, 
and  her  place  filled,  he  did  not  consider  the 
evidence  in  her  favor  strong  enough  to  demand 
her  reinstatement.  The  whole  effect  of  Mr. 
Payne's  tactless  performance  was  to  bring  un 
necessary  public  censure  upon  the  President. 
Cabinet  officers  have  relieved  the  situation  by 
resigning  on  less  ground  than  this;  Mr.  Payne 
is  not  one  of  the  resigning  kind,  and  he  still 
sticks  to  his  place.  But  one  result  of  the  inci 
dent  has  been  that  he  has  had  his  authority 

154 


THE  NET   RESULT 


questioned  and  will  have  to  keep  his  fingers  out 
of  Delaware  factional  politics  for  the  future. 

The  President's  patience  is  not  limitless,  and 
he  hates  fruitless  quarrels.  To  Byrne's  place 
he  appointed  John  P.  Nields,  who  had  once 
served  acceptably  as  district  attorney  ad  in 
terim  and  understood  the  duties  of  the  office. 
Nields  was  a  pronounced  anti-Addicks  man. 
There  was  a  brisk  set-to  between  the  Senators 
as  to  the  successorship  before  the  President  set 
tled  it,  and  he  was  disgusted  to  the  point  of 
vigorous  protest  at  the  substitution  of  two  quar 
relsome  bosses  for  one  who  did  not  quarrel  but 
was  universally  quarreled  with.  He  read  the 
two  men  a  lecture  on  scandalizing  his  admin 
istration  before  the  country  and  keeping  him 
continually  in  hot  water.  The  upshot  of  the 
Byrne  and  Todd  cases  is  that  he  will  take  the 
patronage  of  Delaware  wholly  into  his  own 
hands  till  the  two  factions  can  make  up  their 
differences,  or  till  Addicks  shall  quit  active 
politics  and  remove  the  most  serious  obstacle 
to  the  permanent  supremacy  of  his  party  in  the 
little  State. 


155 


CHAPTER   X 

THE     SECOND-TERM      IDEA 

The  President's  desire  for  reelection — Republican  rivals  who 
dropped  out — The  Hanna  "boom" — Real  loyalty  appre 
ciated — Cleveland,  Gray,  and  the  coal-strike  arbitration. 

"I  DO  not  believe  in  playing  the  hypocrite," 
Mr.  Roosevelt  wrote  to  a  friend  a  few  months 
ago.  "Any  strong  man  fit  to  be  President 
would  desire  a  renomination  and  reelection 
after  his  first  term.  Lincoln  was  President  in 
so  great  a  crisis  that  perhaps  he  neither  could 
nor  did  feel  any  personal  interest  in  his  own 
reelection.  I  trust  and  believe  that  if  the  crisis 
were  a  serious  one  I  should  be  incapable  of 
considering  my  own  well-being  for  a  moment 
in  such  a  contingency.  But  at  present  I  should 
like  to  be  elected  President  just  precisely  as 
John  Quincy  Adams,  or  McKinley,  or  Cleve 
land,  or  John  Adams,  or  Washington  himself 
desired  to  be  elected.  It  is  pleasant  to  think 
that  one's  countrymen  believe  well  of  one. 
But  I  shall  not  do  anything  whatever  to  secure 


THE  ONE  CONSIDERATION 

my  nomination  save  to  try  to  carry  on  the  pub 
lic  business  in  such  shape  that  decent  citizens 
will  believe  I  have  shown  wisdom,  integrity 
and  courage.  If  they  believe  this  with  suffi 
cient  emphasis  to  secure  my  nomination  and 
election — and  on  no  other  terms  can  I,  or  would 
I,  be  willing  to  secure  either — why,  I  shall  be 
glad.  If  they  do  not  I  shall  be  sorry,  but  I 
shall  not  be  very  much  cast  down,  because  I 
shall  feel  that  I  have  done  the  best  that  was  in 
me,  and  that  there  is  nothing  I  have  yet  done 
of  which  I  have  cause  to  be  ashamed  or  which 
I  have  cause  to  regret;  and  that  I  can  go  out 
of  office  with  the  profound  satisfaction  of  hav 
ing  accomplished  a  certain  amount  of  work 
that  was  both  beneficial  and  honorable  for  the 
country." 

Substantially  the  same  idea  he  had  expressed 
to  others  from  the  day  he  succeeded  to  the 
presidency.  Yet  the  newspapers  have  never 
ceased  figuring  upon  his  relations  with  this  and 
that  party  magnate;  and  every  time  he  has 
stirred  or  opened  his  mouth  they  have  specu 
lated  in  all  seriousness  on  the  way  his  second- 
term  aspirations  would  be  affected  thereby. 
Of  course,  his  competitors  would  be  from  both 
the  great  parties:  the  Republicans  would  con- 

157 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


test  the  nomination  with  him,  the  Democrats 
the  election. 

All  the  other  Republicans  who  had  been 
regarded  as  possible  candidates  up  to  1901 
quitted  the  field,  as  Mr.  Shaw  did,  when  Presi 
dent  McKinley's  death  left  Mr.  Roosevelt  heir 
to  the  executive  chair.  Marcus  A.  Hanna  of 
Ohio  was  not  one  of  them.  He  had  never  been 
counted  among  the  presidential  probabilities 
during  President  McKinley's  lifetime,  the  ca 
reers  of  these  two  national  figures  being  so 
blended  in  the  popular  mind  that  it  seemed 
almost  as  if  Mr.  Hanna  were  already  enjoying 
his  presidency  through  the  proxy  of  his  friend 
— at  any  rate,  that  all  his  own  ambitions  were 
satisfied  in  the  honors  heaped  upon  the  man 
he  loved  best.  But  with  McKinley's  fall  the 
whole  outlook  was  changed.  Of  all  men,  here 
was  the  one  whom  circumstances  had  most  en 
dowed  with  the  capacity  to  carry  out  the  dead 
President's  designs.  Roosevelt  might  try  to, 
but  Hanna  surely  could.  Not  a  few  political 
prophets,  therefore,  contemptuous  enough  in 
disposing  of  the  potential  candidacy  of  other 
notable  Republicans,  paused  when  they  came 
to  Hanna,  and  said:  "Perhaps." 

Moreover,  Mr.  Hanna  lent  a  color  of  like- 


MR.    HANNA'S   ATTITUDE 

lihood  to  this  suspicion  by  making  no  positive 
declarations  to  discredit  it.  True,  when  oc 
casionally  a  newspaper  reporter  approached 
him  on  the  subject  of  his  receiving  the  nomina 
tion  for  the  presidency,  he  would  shake  his 
head  and  laugh  at  the  suggestion  as  an  absurd 
ity;  but  these  disclaimers  were  never  taken  so 
seriously  as  to  prevent  Republican  party  gath 
erings  now  and  then  from  cheering  him  as  the 
next  President  of  the  United  States;  nor  did 
he,  when  aware  that  resolutions  were  to  be 
adopted  making  such  use  of  his  name,  do  any 
thing  to  head  them  off.  Open  letters,  inter 
views  and  editorial  paragraphs  kept  him  con 
stantly  before  the  public  in  the  character  of  a 
candidate  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  he  gave  no 
sign  of  irritation  with  their  authors.  It  was 
plain  that  the  political  wire-pullers,  as  well  as 
a  large  multitude  of  ingenuous  citizens  who 
knew  not  politics,  regarded  him  as  coquettish 
rather  than  hostile  toward  the  idea. 

But  no  one  who  was  well  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Hanna's  personality  was  deceived  as  to 
where  he  stood.  He  was  not  of  the  presiden 
tial  mold.  The  Senate  suited  his  taste  and  his 
powers.  He  wanted  a  free  hand.  He  hated 
infinitesimal  worries.  He  lacked  the  patience 
12  1 59 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


necessary  to  deal  with  all  sorts  of  men  at  once 
as  a  master  and  a  supplicant.  He  loved  au 
thority  more  than  insignia.  He  would  rather 
administer  the  affairs  of  a  nation  in  the  name 
of  another  than  let  others  administer  them  in 
his  name.  Nature  had  marked  him  for  a  king 
maker,  not  a  king. 

Bearing  these  facts  in  mind,  it  will  not  be 
so  difficult  to  understand  how  he  could  dis 
courage  the  discussion  of  his  candidacy  by 
treating  it  as  a  joke,  and  yet  permit  his  "boom" 
to  survive  when  he  could  just  as  well  crush  it. 
There  probably  was  never  a  moment  when  he 
felt  the  slightest  temptation  to  enter  the  lists 
for  the  nomination,  but  neither  was  there  a 
moment  when  he  would  have  been  willing  to 
forego  the  power  to  award  it  to  some  one  else. 
If  Republican  organizations  anywhere  saw  fit 
to  name  him  as  their  choice  for  President,  why 
should  he  put  obstacles  in  their  way?  He  was 
entirely  friendly  to  Roosevelt  and  looked  to 
see  him  nominated;  he  would  not  accept  the 
nomination  himself  if  it  were  offered  him,  and 
he  did  not  expect  it  to  be  offered;  but  to  go 
into  the  convention  with  a  large  following  at 
his  back,  and  be  able  to  prevent  a  bad  mistake 
if  it  threatened,  would  be  a  great  satisfaction. 

1 60 


LOYALTY   APPRECIATED 


Politics  he  knew  to  be  like  fire,  very  un 
certain;  no  one  could  foretell  where  it  would 
break  out  next.  Everything  and  everybody 
might  be  going  Roosevelt's  way  to-day,  yet  to 
morrow  might  witness  a  stampede  toward  an 
other  candidate  or  a  general  break-up.  The 
wise  politician,  he  reasoned,  is  he  who  never 
takes  anything  for  granted,  but  provides  him 
self  against  all  emergencies. 

The  first  case  that  brought  the  Roosevelt 
and  Hanna  "booms"  into  apparent  collision 
was  that  of  Judson  W.  Lyons,  the  Register  of 
the  Treasury  appointed  by  President  McKin- 
ley.  As  some  of  the  published  accounts  of  the 
incident  have  distorted  it,  I  shall  take  a  par 
ticipant's  liberty  in  setting  it  right. 

Lyons  was  a  Georgia  negro.  He  owed  his 
appointment  to  Senator  Hanna's  influence.  He 
had  acquitted  himself  creditably  in  office,  and 
was  generally  respected  at  the  Treasury  De 
partment.  As  his  four  years  of  service  were 
drawing  to  an  end,  a  few  gossips  began  to  talk 
about  his  being  dropped  to  make  room  for 
somebody  else.  His  friend  Booker  T.  Wash 
ington  was  calling  on  him  one  day,  when  Lyons 
remarked,  in  the  course  of  their  conversation, 
that,  although  he  should  value  reappointment, 

161 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


he  had  not  asked  for  it,  and  would  not  wish 
Mr.  Roosevelt  to  act  under  any  misapprehen 
sion;  that  he  admired  Mr.  Roosevelt  very 
much,  and  would  support  him  against  every 
body  else  except  Mr.  Hanna;  but  that  Mr. 
Hanna,  if  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  in 
1904,  could  command  his  allegiance  against 
any  man  living. 

Mr.  Washington,  a  day  or  two  afterward, 
mentioned  the  matter  to  me.  I  obtained  his 
permission  to  repeat  the  story  to  the  President. 
Mr.  Roosevelt  listened  with  interest.  His  eyes 
snapped  as,  at  the  close  of  the  recital,  he 
reached  for  a  memorandum  card  and  wrote 
Lyons's  name  on  it,  remarking:  "I  like  Lyons, 
and  had  expected  to  reappoint  him,  but  this 
settles  the  matter.  A  man  who  is  loyal  to  his 
friends,  and  who  will  be  so  frank,  when  his 
own  fortunes  are  in  the  balance,  as  to  be  un 
willing  to  profit  through  any  misunderstand 
ing  of  his  position,  has  the  stuff  in  him  of 
which  good  public  servants  are  made.  I  wish 
you  would  say  to  Lyons  for  me  that  I  shall 
lose  no  time  in  putting  his  reappointment  be 
yond  question." 

This  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  basis  of  fact 
underlying  half  the  stories  which  have  been 

162 


OHIO'S   INDORSEMENT 


set  in  circulation  about  Senator  Hanna  and 
President  Roosevelt,  almost  from  the  day  the 
latter  took  his  oath  of  office.  While  the  polit 
ical  quidnuncs  were  busiest  inventing  new  the 
ories  of  their  relations,  and  debating  whether 
Hanna  could  possibly  upset  Roosevelt's  pro 
gram  and  prevent  his  nomination,  and  whether 
Roosevelt  could  devise  a  way  of  side-tracking 
Hanna's  schemes  if  he  really  addressed  his 
mind  to  it,  the  two  men  were  breakfasting  to 
gether  once  a  week  on  corned-beef  hash  and 
griddle  cakes,  and  talking  over  affairs  in  Con 
gress  and  the  country  with  as  much  composure 
as  if  such  things  as  party  conventions  had  never 
existed. 

But  a  day  did  come  when  they  took  oppo 
site  views  of  the  next  thing  to  be  done,  and  the 
public  was  treated  to  a  short,  sharp  skirmish 
of  wits,  in  which  most  of  the  fighting  and  all 
the  success  were  on  one  side.  The  President 
was  traveling  in  the  far  West  in  the  spring  of 
1903.  The  Ohio  Republican  Convention  was 
about  to  meet,  and  the  contents  of  the  platform 
were  already  under  discussion.  Senator  Fora- 
ker  favored  the  adoption  of  a  plank  approving 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  administration  and  pledging 
the  State  to  his  support  in  1904.  In  Pennsyl- 


THE   MAN    ROOSEVELT 


vania  and  Kansas  this  had  already  been  done. 
Senator  Hanna  opposed  such  a  measure  in 
Ohio  on  the  technical  ground  that  the  only 
convention  which  has  a  right  to  commit  a  State 
to  any  candidate  for  the  presidency  is  the  one 
called  for  the  purpose  of  choosing  delegates 
for  the  presidential  convention  and  instructing 
them.  As  such  a  convention  would  not  be  held 
in  Ohio  till  1904,  he  argued  that  the  action  of 
a  1903  convention  would  be  nugatory.  A  tele 
gram  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  practically  leaving  the 
question  to  him  for  settlement,  drew  forth  the 
response,  also  by  wire:  "Those  who  favor  my 
administration  and  nomination  will  indorse 
them,  and  those  who  do  not  will  oppose 
them." 

This  made  the  issue  flat.  It  was  supposed 
by  many,  and  hoped  by  some,  that  Mr.  Hanna 
would  accept  the  challenge  and  fight  the  mat 
ter  out  in  the  convention;  but  he  did  not.  On 
the  contrary,  he  simply  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  let  the  plank  go  through  unobstructed. 
The  people  who  had  been  thirsting  for  a  quar 
rel  said:  aOh,  it's  all  fair  on  the  surface;  that's 
for  political  effect.  But  their  personal  friend 
ship  will  never  stand  such  a  strain."  Ten  days 
later  they  saw  the  President  dropping  his  regu- 

164 


DEMOCRATIC   CANDIDATES 

lar  round  of  duties  and  speeding  across  the 
country  to  attend  the  wedding  of  Senator  Han- 
na's  daughter  in  Cleveland — a  compliment  al 
most  unique  of  its  kind.  It  takes  a  good  deal 
more  than  an  honest  opposition  and  plain 
speech  to  drag  President  Roosevelt  into  a  snarl 
with  a  man  he  really  likes,  and  he  likes  "Mark" 
Hanna. 

Toward  possible  Democratic  candidates  for 
the  presidency  Mr.  Roosevelt's  demeanor  has 
been  perfectly  pleasant  as  long  as  they  have 
met  him  on  a  fair  footing.  With  Bryan  he  has 
naturally  had  little  to  do,  as  their  paths  have 
not  crossed  except  during  campaigns.  With 
Gorman  he  has  maintained  a  polite  but  armed 
truce  ever  since  their  clash  in  old  times  over 
civil-service  reform,  described  on  another  page. 
Of  Hill  he  once  expressed  his  opinion  in  un 
measured  terms  as  "belonging  to  the  type  of 
so-called  practical  politicians  who  care  nothing 
for  principles  but  everything  for  votes,"  "the 
champion  of  the  lawbreaker  and  the  ally  of  the 
criminal,"  and  the  like.  Messrs.  Gorman  and 
Hill  are  men  of  long  memories.  When  Olney 
was  Attorney-General,  Roosevelt  used  to  quar 
rel  with  him  officially  in  the  morning  over  the 
construction  of  the  civil-service  law,  and  play 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tennis  with  him  all  the  afternoon,  keeping  up 
the  controversy  between  sets. 

With  Judge  Gray  of  Delaware  and  Grover 
Cleveland  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  always  been  on 
excellent  terms.  Cleveland  was  Governor 
while  Roosevelt  was  in  the  New  York  Legis 
lature,  and  they  acquired  a  high  respect  for 
each  other  while  working  together  on  measures 
for  civic  reform.  It  is  also  worth  noting  that 
on  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  they  dif 
fered  on  non-political  questions,  Roosevelt 
made  what  was  in  some  respects  the  most  re 
markable  speech  ever  delivered  in  the  Assem 
bly.  A  bill  was  passed  in  1884  to  reduce  the 
fare  on  the  elevated  railroads  of  New  York 
city  from  ten  cents,  which  was  permissible 
under  their  charters  and  had  been  charged  up 
to  that  time,  to  five  cents.  The  Governor 
vetoed  it  on  the  ground  of  unconstitutional- 
ity,  because  it  violated  the  State's  implied  con 
tract  on  the  strength  of  which  the  stockhold 
ers  had  subscribed  their  money  to  build  the 
roads. 

Of  course,  the  veto  was  highly  unpopular. 
The  corporations  were  hated  on  general  anti- 
monopoly  principles,  and  also  because  they 
were  under  control  of  Jay  Gould  and  his  Wall 

1 66 


A  NOTABLE  SPEECH 


Street  coparceners.  Moreover,  they  had  been 
so  overbearing  in  their  methods  as  to  increase 
the  hostility  of  their  compulsory  patrons.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  himself  had  fought  them  because  he 
was  convinced  that  they  had  debauched  the 
courts  in  order  to  hold  fast  to  certain  unlawful 
privileges.  When  the  five-cent-fare  bill  had 
first  come  up  in  the  Assembly  he  had  voted  for 
it,  and  he  was  now  looked  to  as  the  natural 
leader  of  the  movement  to  repass  it  over  the 
veto.  To  the  astonishment  of  every  one  he  an 
nounced  his  intention  to  sustain  the  veto,  and 
explained  his  position  thus: 

"I  have  to  say  with  shame  that  when  I  voted 
for  this  bill  I  did  not  act  as  I  think  I  ought  to 
have  acted  on  the  floor  of  this  house.  For  the 
only  time,  I  did  at  that  time  vote  contrary  to 
what  I  think  to  be  honestly  right.  I  have  to 
confess  that  I  weakly  yielded,  partly  to  a  vin 
dictive  feeling  toward  the  infernal  thieves  who 
have  those  railroads  in  charge  and  partly  to 
the  popular  voice  in  New  York.  For  the  man 
agers  of  the  elevated  railroads  I  have  as  little 
feeling  as  any  man  here,  and  if  it  were  pos 
sible  I  should  be  willing  to  pass  a  bill  of 
attainder  against  Gould  and  all  of  his  asso 
ciates.  I  realize  that  they  have  done  the  most 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


incalculable  harm  in  this  community,  with 
their  hired  stock-jobbing  newspaper,  with  their 
corruption  of  the  judiciary,  and  with  their  cor 
ruption  of  this  house.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
doing  right  to  them,  for  they  are  merely  com 
mon  thieves.  As  to  the  resolution" — a  petition 
handed  in  by  the  directors  of  the  company — 
"signed  by  Gould  and  his  son,  I  would  pay 
more  attention  to  a  petition  signed  by  Barney 
Aaron,  Owney  Geoghegan,  and  Billy  McGlory 
than  I  would  pay  to  that  paper,  because  I  re 
gard  these  men  as  part  of  an  infinitely  danger 
ous  order — the  wealthy  criminal  class." 

This  speech,  which  a  hundred  prophets 
were  ready  to  swear  would  be  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
valedictory  in  politics  because  of  the  popular 
antagonism  it  would  excite  against  him,  did 
just  two  things :  it  established  the  speaker  more 
firmly  in  the  confidence  of  his  constituency, 
who  discovered  that  they  had  a  representative 
with  courage  enough  to  take  an  unpopular 
stand  if  he-  saw  plainly  that  it  was  right,  even 
at  the  cost  of  humiliating  himself  by  an  apol 
ogy;  and  it  gave  to  the  politico-social  vocabu 
lary  a  new  and  striking  phrase.  "The  wealthy 
criminal  class"  became  a  fixture  in  the  lan 
guage.  It  was  quoted  again  and  again  when, 

1 68 


INGENIOUS  FICTION 


two  years  later,  its  author  made  a  campaign  for 
mayor  of  New  York  city.  He  was  defeated 
through  the  peculiar  complications  of  a  three- 
sided  contest;  but  he  carried  with  him  the 
largest  percentage  of  the  whole  vote  cast  for 
any  Republican  candidate  for  mayor  who  up 
to  that  time  had  made  the  fight  with  three 
tickets  in  the  field. 

The  mention  of  Gray  recalls  the  coal-strike 
arbitration,  over  which  he  presided.  That  epi 
sode  has  furnished  a  text  for  an  exceptionally 
large  number  of  perversions  of  history,  but  for 
none  which  surpasses  in  picturesque  quality  this 
widely  copied  newspaper  skit: 

When  he  made  up  his  list  of  the  members 
of  the  commission  for  submission  to  the  coal 
operators  and  to  President  Mitchell,  President 
Roosevelt  did  not  have  the  name  of  Judge  Gray 
at  the  top.  He  had  there  the  name  of  Grover 
Cleveland.  Mr.  Cleveland  had  been  commu 
nicated  with  and  had  consented  to  serve.  The 
President  was  delighted  with  this  selection  for 
chairman.  He  believed  the  appearance  of  the 
former  President  at  the  head  of  the  strike-set 
tling  body  would  command  the  respect  and 
admiration  of  the  American  people.  There 
fore  he  was  much  surprised  when  one  of  his 
advisers  suggested  that  the  selection  of  Mr. 

169 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Cleveland  might  be  a  political  mistake.  The 
President  asked  what  he  meant  by  that. 

"I  mean,"  said  the  gentleman,  "that  Mr. 
Cleveland  is  a  presidential  possibility.  If  he 
serves  at  the  head  of  this  commission  it  will 
bring  him  very  prominently  before  the  public, 
and  may  end  in  making  him  the  Democratic 
nominee  in  1904." 

"Nonsense!"  exclaimed  the  President. 

At  that  moment  Secretary  Root  appeared, 
and  the  President  asked  him  what  he  thought 
of  it.  Mr.  Root  stroked  his  chin  during  a 
few  moments  of  meditation,  and  then  replied, 
"I  agree  with  the  gentleman  who  has  just 
spoken." 

Without  another  word  President  Roosevelt 
grabbed  a  lead-pencil  and  drew  a  line  through 
the  name  of  Grover  Cleveland. 

As  every  one  knows  that  the  President  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  appointment  of  the 
chairman  or  "head"  of  the  commission  as  such, 
but  left  the  members  free  to  select  him  from 
among  themselves,  it  seems  strange  that  this 
story  could  have  gained  any  considerable  cre 
dence.  Again,  when  the  names  appeared  Judge 
Gray's  stood  not  at  the  top,  but  down  in  the 
body  of  the  list.  These  preliminary  errors,  of 
course,  might  be  attributable  to  the  exercise  of 

170 


ACTUAL  FACTS 


the  story-teller's  license;  but  it  is  on  the  main 
fact  that  the  narrator  has  gone  most  sadly 
astray. 

It  had  been  in  the  President's  mind  for 
some  time  to  have  the  whole  subject  of  the 
strike  investigated  and  the  grievances  adjusted 
if  possible;  he  had  accordingly  made  out  a  list 
of  persons  he  deemed  available  for  a  board  of 
inquiry  and  conciliation,  and  in  some  cases  ob 
tained  their  consent  to  serve.  Later  he  revised 
his  plan,  and  decided  to  call  in  the  warring 
parties  and  let  them  have  most  to  say  about  the 
selection  of  their  judges.  In  his  original  list 
he  had  included  Mr.  Cleveland,  whose  par 
ticipation  he  regarded  as  almost  an  essential  to 
the  success  of  the  scheme,  and  when  the  method 
of  selection  was  changed  he  still  clung  most 
tenaciously  to  this  one  name.  He  felt  that  he 
had  a  right  in  such  an  emergency  to  take  ad 
vantage  of  the  wide-spread  regard  in  which 
Mr.  Cleveland  was  held.  He  had  a  high 
patriotic  purpose  in  mind;  this  effort  for  the 
restoration  of  industrial  peace  and  the  salva 
tion  of  the  country  from  suffering  could  suc 
ceed  only  by  the  backing  of  public  sentiment; 
and  he  believed  that  the  combination  of  the 
President  and  the  one  living  ex-President,  sepa- 

171 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


rated  in  political  faith  but  united  in  an  un 
selfish  undertaking  for  the  common  welfare, 
would  carry  weight  with  the  mass  of  good 
citizens. 

When  he  called  in  the  representatives  of  the 
miners  and  the  operators  they  demanded  that 
the  commission  of  arbitration  should  be  com 
posed  of  members  of  certain  specified  classes 
and  callings — an  army  or  naval  engineer,  a 
sociologist,  a  United  States  judge,  etc.  For  the 
judge's  place  the  President  had  selected  Will 
iam  R.  Day,  the  bosom  friend  of  the  late  Presi 
dent  McKinley  and  now  a  justice  of  the  Su 
preme  Court.  But  the  conference  decided  that 
it  would  be  better  to  have  a  judge  from  the 
Third  Circuit,  which  embraced  the  scene  of 
the  controversy,  than  from  the  Sixth,  where 
Judge  Day  was  serving;  so  Judge  Gray  was 
put  on  in  the  place  to  which  Day  had  first  been 
assigned.  That  disposes  of  the  story  that  Gray 
was  substituted  for  Cleveland,  for  Gray  did 
not  figure  in  the  program  at  all  till  the  judge's 
place  had  been  reached  and  Day  had  been 
ruled  out  on  grounds  of  locality. 

When  it  came  to  selecting  the  military 
engineer,  the  President  exerted  himself  to  the 
utmost  to  induce  the  withdrawal  of  this  de- 

172 


WHO   DID   OBJECT 


mand  and  the  substitution  of  the  single  name 
of  Grover  Cleveland.  Some  of  the  parties 
present  expressed  a  doubt  whether  the  ex-Presi 
dent  would  take  kindly  to  the  idea  of  settling 
the  strike  by  such  means;  but  Mr.  Roosevelt 
showed  them  a  letter  in  which  Mr.  Cleve 
land  expressed  his  hearty  approval  of  the  course 
proposed.  The  operators  present  then  refused 
to  consider  the  suggestion  at  all.  The  Presi 
dent  nevertheless  was  so  persistent  that  tele 
phonic  communication  was  opened  with  the 
companies'  offices  in  New  York,  so  that  the  com 
mittee  in  Washington  could  ascertain  positively 
whether  they  were  carrying  out  the  wishes  of 
their  principals.  No  argument  or  plea  had 
the  slightest  effect  upon  the  capitalists ;  they 
would  not  accept  Mr.  Cleveland  as  an  arbitrator 
on  any  pretext;  and  with  intense  reluctance  the 
President  had  to  let  go  the  most  valued  feature 
of  his  plan. 

It  is  too  bad  to  spoil  so  pretty  a  story  as 
the  one  quoted,  especially  its  picture  of  Secre 
tary  Root  rubbing  his  chin  and  the  President 
grabbing  a  lead-pencil  in  his  feverish  haste  to 
retrieve  an  error  of  thoughtlessness  which 
might  have  given  Mr.  Cleveland  so  much  pres 
tige  as  a  candidate  against  him  in  1904;  but 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


pencil  and  chin,  rubbing  and  grabbing,  will 
have  to  go,  as  the  President's  plan  did.  With 
them,  I  fear,  must  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of 
historic  truth  a  bevy  of  other  pleasing  and  dra 
matic  fictions  concerning  Mr.  Roosevelt's  treat 
ment  of  possible  competitors  in  the  coming 
campaign. 

The  simplest  form  of  statement  to  cover  the 
whole  case  is  that,  if  two  courses  were  open  to 
the  President,  one  of  which  would  rule  all  his 
rivals  out  of  the  contest  while  the  other  would 
double  their  multitude,  he  would  choose  the 
latter.  This  he  would  do  partly  from  an  in 
stinct  of  generosity  which  makes  him  some 
times  appear  almost  quixotic,  and  partly  to 
gratify  a  taste  that  comes  near  being  a  mania 
with  him — the  love  of  matching  his  strength 
and  cleverness  against  those  of  other  men. 

Even  the  characteristic  despatch  concerning 
his  indorsement  by  the  Ohio  convention  was 
sent  without  a  moment's  deliberation,  and 
merely — in  the  quaint  phrase  of  one  of  his  inti 
mates — "for  the  fun  of  taking  a  fall  out  of 
Uncle  Mark."  If  there  had  been  no  talk  about 
it,  he  would  not  have  cared  a  snap  of  his  fin 
gers  whether  the  platform  touched  on  1904  or 
let  it  alone.  Mr.  Hanna  lacked  his  usual 

174 


TASTE   FOR   CONTEST 


shrewdness  in  letting  the  issue  be  raised;  for 
he  must  have  known  that  as  surely  as  he  did  so 
he  would  rouse  in  Mr.  Roosevelt  a  spirit  which 
would  not  be  appeased  till  a  battle  had  been 
fought  out  and  one  side  or  the  other  routed. 


13 


175 


CHAPTER   XI 

A   FIGHTER  AND   HIS   METHODS 

Love  of  matching  skill  and  strength  —  A  generous  adversary  — 
The  census  spoilsmen's  grievance — Harun-al-Raschid  and  the 
police — How  a  demonstration  failed. 

THE  subject  of  this  chapter  naturally  grows 
out  of  certain  incidents  mentioned  in  the  last, 
which  have  shown  us  how  Mr.  Roosevelt  bears 
himself  toward  competitors  and  antagonists  in 
the  larger  field  of  politics.  Elsewhere  have 
appeared  specimens  of  his  manner  of  meeting 
the  criticisms  passed  upon  the  work  of  the 
Civil-Service  Commission  while  he  was  con 
nected  with  it.  Other  illustrations  are  needed, 
however,  to  complete  his  portrait  as  a  fighter. 

From  his  boyhood — at  least  from  that  point 
in  it  at  which  he  resolved  to  make  himself 
strong  and  take  his  share  in  the  active  sports  of 
other  boys — he  appears  to  have  most  enjoyed 
those  forms  of  exercise  which  matched  him 
against  his  mates.  He  did  not  always  defeat 
his  opponents  in  such  struggles;  he  did  not 

176 


TYPICAL  METHODS 


expect  to.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  get  the 
enjoyment  of  the  contest;  and  he  was  ready 
to  "let  the  best  fellow  win,"  and  accept  the 
fortunes  of  war  in  good  part  whichever  way 
they  went. 

At  college  boxing  was  always  his  favorite 
amusement.  A  classmate  who  remembers  well 
his  exercise  with  the  gloves  says  that,  although 
Roosevelt  was  a  light-weight,  not  naturally  mus 
cular,  and  suffered  from  a  handicap  of  imper 
fect  vision  which  would  have  checked  most 
other  men,  he  was  keen  for  the  sport,  and  used 
to  spar  with  a  pair  of  large  spectacles  literally 
lashed  to  his  head.  He  risked  the  total  loss  of 
his  sight  with  every  bout,  as  an  unlucky  blow 
from  the  other  party  might  have  smashed  his 
glasses  and  driven  them  into  his  eyes;  but  in 
spite  of  that  he  was  always  the  attacker.  He 
aimed  to  offset  his  own  weak  point  by  leading 
swiftly  and  heavily,  so  that  his  adversary  should 
be  kept  too  busy  with  defensive  tactics  to  gather 
his  wits  and  put  in  any  offensive  work. 

Some  one  else — I  think  it  is  Owen  Wister 
— describes  his  first  glimpse  of  Roosevelt  as  a 
college  pugilist,  when,  in  the  midst  of  a  rattling 
exchange  of  blows,  the  umpire  called  "time." 
Roosevelt  at  once  dropped  his  hands,  but  just 

177 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


as  the  other  student,  under  the  full  momentum 
of  the  fight,  landed  a  fist  squarely  on  his  nose. 
A  loud  chorus  of  "Foul!"  arose  from  the  by 
standers.  In  an  instant,  his  face  streaming 
with  blood,  Roosevelt  ran  forward  with  a  ges 
ture  of  deprecation,  crying  out:  "Stop!  He 
didn't  hear!  He  didn't  hear!"  and  then  shook 
hands  warmly  with  the  author  of  his  misfortune 
to  prove  his  belief  that  the  blow  was  an  accident. 
How  well  these  early  phenomena  forecast 
the  methods  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  pursue  as  a 
fighter  in  public  life,  every  one  familiar  with 
his  career  must  recognize.  He  has  gone  his 
own  way  as  peaceably  as  possible,  but  has  never 
dodged  a  collision  where  the  other  fellow  was 
bound  to  have  one  and  had  come  out  in  search 
of  it.  His  first  important  victory  in  politics 
was  won  in  1884,  m  the  Republican  State  Con 
vention  at  Utica,  N.  Y.,  where  he  appeared  at 
the  head  of  a  little  group  of  Edmunds  men 
from  New  York  city.  In  his  home  district  he 
had  won  his  right  to  go  to  Utica  by  defeating 
the  veteran  boss,  "Jake"  Hess,  who  had  for 
merly  swung  things  there  to  suit  himself,  and 
who  laughed  at  the  idea  that  "a  youngster 
and  a  dude,  with  no  support  except  from  the 
swells  of  Murray  Hill,"  could  effect  anything 


HIS   FIRST   CONVENTION 


against  a  local  party  machine  run  by  practical 
workers. 

At  Utica  he  crossed  swords  with  Senator 
Warner  Miller,  then  at  the  height  of  his  pres 
tige.  Miller  wished  to  go  to  the  national  con 
vention  at  Chicago  as  one  of  the  delegates  at 
large  to  support  Elaine.  But  the  Utica  con 
vention  was  divided ;  Roosevelt's  little  group  of 
delegates,  though  constituting  only  one-seventh 
of  the  total  vote,  was  numerous  enough  to  hold 
the  balance  of  power,  and  its  leader  had  the 
shrewdness  to  see  how  to  use  this.  So  Miller 
was  ingloriously  beaten,  Roosevelt  not  only  go 
ing  to  Chicago  in  his  stead,  but  taking  with  him 
three  other  delegates  at  large  of  his  own  way  of 
thinking.  Miller  had  used  his  influence  at  Al 
bany  the  previous  winter  to  prevent  Roosevelt's 
election  as  Speaker  of  the  Assembly.  After 
his  triumph  in  the  State  convention,  Roose 
velt  met  Miller  in  the  lobby  of  their  hotel  at 
Utica,  and  tapping  him  pleasantly  on  the  shoul 
der  remarked:  "Senator,  I  forgive  you.  Time 
makes  all  things  even."  Miller's  sense  of 
humor,  never  of  the  best,  was  not  equal  to  the 
appreciation  of  this  reference;  but  Roosevelt 
enjoyed  it  enough  for  two. 

In  the  spring  of  1902  Congress  consented  to 
179 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


a  plan  recommended  by  the  President  in  his 
message  and  framed  a  bill  establishing  a  per 
manent  census  bureau.  But  it  tried  at  the  same 
time  a  trick.  The  temporary  force  whose  work 
was  then  drawing  to  a  close  had  been  selected 
on  the  patronage  plan,  without  competitive  ex 
amination.  The  desire  of  the  spoilsmen  was 
to  bring  this  whole  body  of  employees  into  the 
classified  service  by  legislation,  so  that  as  fast 
as  the  work  was  cleared  up  and  the  force  re 
duced  the  proteges  could  be  transferred  to  other 
positions  under  the  Government.  Such  a  plan 
would,  of  course,  have  been  a  gross  injustice  to 
other  eligibles  who  had  fairly  earned  their 
places  by  competitive  examination. 

Senate  and  House  vied  with  each  other  in 
trying  to  load  down  the  new  bill  with  pro 
visions  which  would  accomplish  the  desired 
end  by  indirection.  President  Roosevelt,  how 
ever,  warned  his  friends  in  both  chambers  that 
if  the  bill  came  to  him  full  of  possible  abuses 
he  should  veto  it,  even  at  the  cost  of  losing  the 
permanent  bureau  on  which  he  had  so  set  his 
heart.  The  bill,  with  its  full  burden  of  poten 
tial  spoils,  went  to  conference,  where  the  advo 
cates  of  the  various  schemes  locked  horns  and 
fought  their  battle  out;  the  result  was  the  evo- 

180 


CENSUS   SPOILS   PROGRAM 


lution  of  a  paragraph  which  simply  authorized 
the  director  of  the  census,  with  the  approval 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  to  appoint  to 
the  permanent  census  office  such  members  of 
the  old  force  as  he  chose,  placed  these  persons 
in  the  classified  service  by  virtue  of  such  ap 
pointment,  and  required  that  all  subsequent  ap 
pointments  should  be  made  through  the  usual 
machinery  of  the  Civil-Service  Commission. 
In  this  form  the  conference  bill  went  through 
both  houses  with  a  rush,  the  spoilsmen  believ 
ing  that  they  had  got,  in  effect,  what  they  had 
started  for. 

The  President  saw  his  chance  and  lost  not 
a  moment  in  improving  it.  In  an  official  let 
ter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  who  was 
entirely  sympathetic  with  his  purposes,  he 
stated  the  interpretation  he  wished  put  upon 
the  civil-service  paragraph.  Then  he  signed 
the  bill.  The  next  morning  the  spoils  Con 
gressmen  awoke  to  the  fact  that  instead  of 
tricking  the  President  they  had  tricked  them 
selves.  The  paragraph  they  had  passed,  with 
his  perfectly  legitimate  interpretation  of  it,  tied 
up  the  whole  business  so  that  the  director  of 
the  census  would  have  to  drop  between  1,500 
and  2,000  of  the  congressional  proteges  within 

181 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


the  succeeding  four  months,  and  any  additions 
he  might  need  to  make  to  his  staff  thereafter 
would  have  to  be  drawn  from  the  registers  of 
the  Civil-Service  Commission. 

A  favorite  maxim  of  Roosevelt's  is  the  old 
Norse  viking's  commentary  on  a  short  sword: 
"If  you  go  in  close  enough,  your  sword  will 
be  long  enough."  His  own  sword  is  short,  but 
he  walks  up  to  his  subject  so  directly  that  his 
thrusts  reach  its  heart.  When  he  was  engaged 
in  reforming  the  police  establishment  in  New 
York  cautious  friends  warned  him  that  other 
commissioners  with  virtuous  intentions  had 
tried  the  same  thing,  but  that  the  force  was  so 
honeycombed  with  petty  jealousies  and  favor 
itism  and  blackmail  that  the  board  could  never 
ascertain  the  truth  about  what  the  men  were 
doing. 

"We'll  see,"  he  remarked,  and  he  used  the 
words  literally.  That  day,  at  the  close  of  office 
hours,  he  privately  invited  one  of  the  doubters 
to  accompany  him  on  an  early  stroll  through 
part  of  the  East  Side  the  following  morning. 

"How  early?"  asked  his  friend. 

"Half  past  two.  Meet  me  at  Third  Ave 
nue  and  Forty-second  Street." 

The  friend  found  the  commissioner  at  the 
182 


WE'LL  SEE" 


appointed  place  and  hour,  armed  only  with  a 
little  stick  and  a  written  list  of  the  patrolmen's 
posts  in  the  district  which  was  to  be  visited. 
They  walked  over  each  beat  separately.  In  the 
first  three  beats  they  found  only  one  man  on 
post.  One  of  the  others  had  gone  to  assist  the 
man  on  the  third,  but  there  was  no  trace  of 
the  third  man's  whereabouts.  They  went  over 
to  Second  Avenue,  where  they  came  upon  a 
patrolman  seated  on  a  box  with  a  woman. 

"Patrolman,"  asked  the  commissioner,  "are 
you  doing  your  duty  on  post  27?" 

The  fellow  jumped  up  in  a  hurry.  This 
pedestrian,  though  unknown  to  him,  was  obvi 
ously  familiar  with  police  matters;  so  he  stam 
mered  out,  with  every  attempt  to  be  obsequious: 
"Yes,  sir;  I  am,  sir." 

"Is  it  all  right  for  you  to  sit  down?"  in 
quired  the  mysterious  stranger. 

"Yes,  sir — no,  sir — well,  sir,  I  wasn't  sitting 
down.  I  was  just  waiting  for  my  partner,  the 
patrolman  on  the  next  beat.  Really,  I  wasn't 
sitting  down." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  stranger,  cutting  him 
short  and  starting  on. 

The  officer  ran  along,  explaining  again 
with  much  volubility  that  he  had  not  been  sit- 

183 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ting  down — he  had  just  been  leaning  a  little 
against  something  while  he  waited. 

"That  will  do;  you  are  following  me  off 
post.  Go  back  to  your  beat  now  and  present 
yourself  before  me  at  headquarters  at  half 
past  nine  this  morning.  I  am  Commissioner 
Roosevelt." 

Another  three  blocks  and  the  strollers  came 
upon  a  patrolman  chatting  with  a  man  and 
a  woman.  They  passed  the  group,  went  a  lit 
tle  way,  and  returned;  the  woman  was  gone,  but 
the  patrolman  and  the  man  were  still  there,  and 
deep  in  conversation.  The  talk  was  inter 
rupted  to  enable  the  officer  to  answer  the  com 
missioner's  questions.  The  man  seized  the  op 
portunity  to  slip  off. 

"They  were  drunk,  sir,  a  little  intoxicated, 
sir,"  was  the  patrolman's  excuse,  as  he  caught 
an  inkling  of  the  situation.  "I  was  just  trying 
to  quiet  them  down  a  bit.  Fm  sorry,  sir,  very 
sorry." 

"That's  enough.  Come  to  Commissioner 
Roosevelt's  office  at  half  past  nine." 

In  search  of  the  roundsman  the  commissioner 
started,  to  call  him  to  account  for  all  this  laxity 
of  discipline.  The  roundsman  was  found  gos 
siping  with  two  patrolmen  on  another  beat. 

184 


HARUN-AL-RASCHID 


" Which  of  you  men  belongs  here?"  de 
manded  the  commissioner,  addressing  the  pa 
trolmen. 

They  and  their  companion  met  the  inquiry 
defiantly.  One  of  the  trio  retorted:  "What 
business  is  that  of  yours?" 

The  commissioner  made  no  response  except 
to  repeat  his  question  in  another  form:  "Which 
one  of  you  is  covering  beat  31?" 

It  was  now  plain  that  they  were  in  trouble. 
By  the  light  of  a  neighboring  gas-lamp  the 
roundsman  recognized  the  interrogator's  face. 
He  cast  a  significant  look  at  one  of  his  com 
panions,  who  answered,  meekly  enough,  "It's 
me,  sir.'7 

The  other  told  where  he  belonged  and  left 
quickly  for  his  post,  while  the  roundsman  made 
a  poor  fist  of  explaining  that  he  was  "just  ad 
monishing  the  patrolmen  to  move  around  and 
do  their  duty"  when  the  commissioner  came  up. 

"You  may  call  on  me  at  half  past  nine 
and  tell  me  all  about  it,"  was  the  response;  "I 
haven't  time  now  to  listen." 

And  so  on  till  daylight.  A  little  allevia 
tion  was  once  given  to  the  discouragement  of 
these  discoveries  when  the  commissioner  moved 
into  a  precinct  where  he  found  everything  run- 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ning  smoothly  and  in  good  order.  The  captain 
who  had  charge  of  it  was  ordered  to  call  at 
headquarters  that  day,  but  to  receive  an  expres 
sion  of  approval,  not  a  reprimand  like  the 
others.  The  crestfallen  culprits,  at  their  hear 
ing  at  half  past  nine,  offered  every  possible  ex 
cuse  for  their  shortcomings.  Some  of  them 
further  assured  the  commissioner  that  that  was 
the  only  night  they  had  been  derelict. 

"Take  care  that  there  is  never  another,"  was 
his  response.  "I  am  going  to  see  with  my  own 
eyes  how  you  men  employ  your  time." 

Here  was  a  case  of  the  short  sword  which 
was  long  enough  when  used  at  close  range.  He 
had  set  out  to  fight  corruption,  laziness,  and  in 
competence  on  the  police  force  till  he  drove 
them  out.  His  methods  were  novel,  but  what 
he  saw  himself  was  vastly  more  convincing 
than  anything  others  could  tell  him. 

The  United  Societies  for  Liberal  Sunday 
Laws  held  a  monster  parade  in  New  York 
while  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  in  the  midst  of  his  en 
forcement  of  the  excise  law.  Several  of  the  city 
fathers  and  a  few  men  prominently  connected 
with  the  brewing  and  distillery  interests  were 
invited  to  review  the  procession.  A  perfunc 
tory  invitation  was  sent,  of  course,  to  the  pres- 

186 


SURPRISED   REMONSTRANTS 

ident  of  the  Police  Board,  but  with  no  suspicion 
that  he  would  accept,  as  the  whole  demonstra 
tion  was  designed  as  a  protest  against  his  alleged 
tyranny.  It  was  a  mistaken  assumption.  At  the 
hour  designated  the  tyrant  promptly  mounted 
the  reviewing-stand,  greeting  the  others  there 
with  smiles  and  bows.  Some  of  them  did  not 
know  him  by  sight,  and  one,  presently  hearing 
the  name  Roosevelt  on  the  lips  of  his  com 
panions,  remarked  to  an  affable  stranger  near 
him: 

"I  wish  Roosevelt  hadn't  pushed  this  excise 
business  so  far." 

"I  'pushed'  it  only  to  the  extent  of  enforcing 
the  law  as  I  found  it,"  was  the  good-tempered 
answer;  "I  didn't  make  the  law." 

The  reviewer  was  almost  as  much  startled 
by  the  contretemps  as  was  one  of  the  reviewed 
a  while  later.  He  was  a  sturdy  veteran  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  who  had  turned  out  to 
make  the  welkin  ring  for  free  beer.  As  his  de 
tachment  of  paraders  approached  the  stand  the 
old  fellow  waved  his  arm  impressively  toward 
the  advancing  host  and  their  banners,  and 
shouted,  with  all  the  sarcasm  possible  concen 
trated  in  his  tone: 

uNun,  wo  ist  der  Roosevelt!" 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


And  was  struck  dumb  by  the  vision  of  a 
smiling  round  face  leaning  over  the  rail  toward 
him  with  the  response: 

"Hier  bin  ich!     Was  willst  du,  Kamarad?" 

As  soon  as  the  veteran  could  command  his 
voice  again  he  led  a  cheer  for  the  man  he  had 
set  out  to  denounce. 

Presently  came  along  a  carriage  bearing  a 
transparency:  uRoosevelt's  Razzle-dazzle  Re 
form  Racket."  It  was  soon  followed  by  an 
other:  "Send  the  Police  Czar  to  Russia."  The 
Czar  greeted  both  with  a  laugh,  and  sent  a 
policeman  after  the  carriages  to  beg  the  gift  of 
the  two  signs  as  souvenirs.  The  occupants 
were  too  surprised  to  refuse,  and  went  over  the 
rest  of  the  route  without  any  sneering  insignia. 
Before  the  parade  ended  the  news  of  the  com 
missioner's  presence  on  the  stand,  and  the  way 
he  was  enjoying  the  sport,  had  passed  all  the 
way  down  the  line,  and  the  cheering  became 
general,  punctuated  with  such  approving  calls 
as  "Bully  for  Teddy!"  "He's  all  right!"  "Good 
boy!" 

"Have  you  had  fun,  commissioner?"  one  of 
the  last  stragglers  asked,  as  the  review  drew  to 
a  close. 

"Never  better  in  my  life,"  was  the  cheery 
1 88 


FALSEHOOD   REBUKED 


answer.  "I  wonder  which  side  the  joke  was 
on?" 

A  New  York  newspaper  came  out  with  a 
bitter  attack  on  the  Police  Board,  charging  it 
with  inefficiency,  and  publishing  in  proof  there 
of  "A  Catalogue  of  the  Principal  Highway 
Robberies  and  Burglaries  of  the  Preceding 
Fifty  Days."  It  had  been  the  custom  of  public 
functionaries  in  New  York  to  ignore  that  sort 
of  criticism  as  unworthy  of  notice,  or  merely 
return  abuse  for  abuse.  But  such  was  not 
Roosevelt's  style.  He  took  up  the  alleged  cases 
one  by  one  and  sifted  them,  and  then  met  the 
charges  with  the  deadly  parallel  in  a  rival  news 
paper.  He  put  in  one  column  the  catalogue, 
and  in  the  next — item  opposite  item — the  true 
stories;  showing  whether  the  event  had  actually 
occurred,  and,  if  so,  what  the  police  had  done, 
how  the  booty  had  been  recovered,  and  what 
had  happened  to  the  criminals.  Out  of  the 
forty-four  robberies  listed,  all  but  four  proved 
to  be  ufakes"  or  failures. 

But  the  answer  did  not  end  the  defense.  It 
added  statistics  to  show  that,  comparing  the 
fifty  days  under  scrutiny  with  the  correspond 
ing  period  under  the  last  preceding  police  ad 
ministration,  the  number  of  felonies  committed 

189 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


had  diminished  by  16  and  the  number  of  felons 
arrested  increased  by  15  per  cent.  Then  it 
turned  its  artillery  upon  former  misstatements 
in  the  same  newspaper,  and  concluded  the 
merciless  exposure  with  a  quotation  from  Ma- 
caulay's  essay  on  the  Memoirs  of  Barere:  "In 
him  the  qualities  which  are  the  proper  objects 
of  hatred  and  the  qualities  which  are  the 
proper  objects  of  contempt  preserve  an  ex 
quisite  and  absolute  harmony.  As  soon  as  he 
ceases  to  write  trifles  he  begins  to  write  lies; 
and  such  lies!  A  man  who  has  never  been  in 
the  tropics  does  not  know  what  a  thunder-storm 
means ;  a  man  who  has  never  looked  on  Niagara 
has  but  a  faint  idea  of  a  cataract;  and  he  who 
has  not  read  Barere's  Memoirs  may  be  said  not 
to  know  what  it  is  to  lie.  .  .  .  We  have  now 
gibbeted  the  carrion;  and  from  its  eminence  of 
infamy  it  will  not  be  easily  taken  down." 

Even  the  judiciary  was  not  spared  when 
occasion  demanded  that  it  be  handled  frankly. 
Judge  Cowing  having,  in  a  charge  to  the 
grand  jury,  once  commented  upon  the  in 
crease  of  crime  in  New  York  in  phrases  that 
seemed  to  reflect  somewhat  upon  the  Police 
Department,  Mr.  Roosevelt  seized  the  oppor 
tunity  offered  by  an  address  before  a  conference 

190 


REPRIMANDLNG   THE   BENCH 

of  Methodist  ministers  to  answer:  uThe  judge's 
apprehensions  were  unfounded.  In  the  aggre 
gate  there  has  been  no  increase  of  crime;  there 
has  been  a  decrease.  In  the  next  place,  the 
most  effective  way  to  reduce  crime  is  for  the 
judges  and  magistrates  to  impose  heavier  sen 
tences  on  criminals.  The  police  do  their  duty 
well ;  but  if  the  courts  let  the  criminals  go  with 
inadequate  sentences,  the  effect  of  the  labor  of 
the  police  is  largely  wasted.  When  I  speak  of 
inadequate  sentences  I  mean  such  sentences  as 
those  imposed  in  the  last  six  months  by  Judge 
Cowing  and  his  associates.  .  .  .  Most  of  these 
criminals,  guilty  of  highway  robbery,  burglary, 
grand  larceny,  and  the  like,  are  already  free 
again,  and  the  police  must  begin  once  more  to 
watch  over  their  deeds  and  to  try  to  protect 
decent  citizens  against  them.  There  is  an  ur 
gent  need  that  in  their  warfare  against  the  crim 
inal  classes  the  police  should  receive  help  from 
the  judiciary.  ...  I  should  not  speak  of  this 
at  all,  if  one  of  the  judges  had  not  himself  in 
voked  the  comparison." 

The    criticism    which    most    unprejudiced 

commentators  pass  upon  Mr.  Roosevelt's  way 

of  carrying  the  fighting  over  into  his  adversary's 

corner   is   that  so   many  of   his    retorts   begin 

14  191 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


like  Horace  Greeley's:  "You  lie!  you  villain, 
you  lie!"  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  ad 
mitted  that,  other  things  being  equal,  such  can 
dor  does  a  good  deal  to  clear  the  air  before  the 
real  battle  opens.  I  remember  once  hearing 
Mr.  Roosevelt,  as  Civil-Service  Commissioner, 
discredit  a  certain  Cabinet  member's  truthful 
ness  to  his  face.  Another  person  who  was  pres 
ent — a  mild-mannered  man  with  an  ingenuous 
soul — seemed  deeply  pained  by  the  scene  while 
it  lasted,  and  afterward  said  to  me:  "It  was 
very  discourteous  treatment  for  Commissioner 
Roosevelt  to  visit  upon  an  officer  of  so  much 
higher  rank.  Why,  he  actually  accused  him  of 
lying."  And  then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  but 
with  no  indication  of  seeing  anything  funny  in 
the  remark,  he  added:  "And  what  was  worse, 
my  dear  sir,  he  went  on  and  proved  it." 


192 


CHAPTER   XII 

WAR    AND    PEACE 

A  much  misunderstood  philosophy — Manly  sports  as  a  life  prepara 
tion — Mr.  Roosevelt's  attitude  toward  Spain — The  Monroe 
doctrine,  the  Hague  court,  and  the  Kishenev  petition. 

"WHENEVER  on  any  point  we  come  in  con 
tact  with  a  foreign  power,  I  hope  that  we  shall 
always  strive  to  speak  courteously  and  respect 
fully  of  that  foreign  power.  Let  us  make  it 
evident  that  we  intend  to  do  justice.  Then 
let  us  make  it  equally  evident  that  we  will 
not  tolerate  injustice  being  done  us  in  return. 
Let  us  further  make  it  evident  that  we  use  no 
words  which  we  are  not  prepared  to  back  up 
with  deeds,  and  that  while  our  speech  is  always 
moderate  we  are  ready  and  willing  to  make  it 
good.  Such  an  attitude  will  be  the  surest  pos 
sible  guarantee  of  that  self-respecting  peace, 
the  attainment  of  which  is  and  must  ever  be 
the  prime  aim  of  a  self-governing  people." 

Without  these  words,  publicly  uttered,  to 
support  me,  I  should  doubtless  have  astonished 

193 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


many  readers  when  I  said  that  Theodore  Roose 
velt,  whose  lips  frame  the  word  "war"  so  fre 
quently,  is  not  a  lover  of  war  for  war's  own 
sake.  No  one  realizes  the  horrors,  the  demor 
alization,  the  nameless  cruelties,  attendant  on 
an  armed  conflict  between  nations  and  parts  of 
nations,  more  than  he.  To  go  to  Cuba  he  tore 
himself  away  from  a  convalescent  wife  and  a 
young  babe.  None  loves  his  home  and  family 
more  dearly,  or  appreciates  more  keenly  what 
it  means  when  husbands  and  lovers,  fathers, 
sons  and  brothers  are  cut  off  in  their  ripe  man 
hood,  and  the  women  and  little  ones  dependent 
on  them  are  thrown  upon  the  mercies  of  the 
world.  Yet  multitudes  of  Americans  shudder 
at  his  philosophy,  because  often  it  treats  peace 
with  scorn  and  places  war  among  the  most  im 
portant  levers  of  civilization — nay,  in  a  sense, 
the  supreme  test  of  the  worth  of  a  people. 
Analysis  could  reduce  it  to  certain  elementary 
propositions,  which  may  be  roughly  stated  thus: 
(i)  Were  human  nature  perfect,  a  state  of 
perpetual  and  wholly  honorable  peace  would 
be  possible,  because  no  one  group  of  human 
beings  would  force  any  other  group  into  a  posi 
tion  from  which  there  is  no  peaceful  escape 
without  dishonor. 

194 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   WAR 


(2)  Human  nature  being  still  very  imper 
fect,  strong  nations  continue  to  prey  upon  weak 
ones,   bullying   nations   to   impose   upon   those 
which  will  submit  to  such  treatment,  and  dis 
satisfied  elements  within  a  nation  to  rebel  with 
out  reason  against  the  constituted  authority. 

(3)  Peace,  bought  at  the  price  of  conces 
sions  to  force  which  has  only  injustice  behind 
it,  is  as  unrighteous  as  war  waged  for  the  delib 
erate  purpose  of  imposing  injustice  upon  others. 

(4)  The  nation  which  falls  into  the  habit 
of  valuing  peace  above  all  other  things  and  of 
purchasing  it  at  any  price,  has  its  moral  vitality 
so  sapped  thereby,  and  its  instinct  of  right  and 
wrong  so  dulled,  that  it  soon  drops  out  of  the 
van  of  the  higher  civilization. 

(5)  This  habit  is  easily  formed  by  over 
looking  one  and  another  case  where  the  exer 
cise  of  force  would  right  a  wrong,  and  resort 
ing  to  diplomacy  when  that  will  afford  only  a 
palliative. 

(6)  A  nation  which  acquires  a  reputation 
for  avoiding  war  at  any  cost  comes  to  be  recog 
nized  as  an  easy  mark,  and  invites  indignities 
and  even  outrages  which  no  other  nation  would 
think  of  visiting  upon  it  if  it  were  famous  for  its 
prompt  punishment  of  such  offenses. 

195 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


(7)  In  order  to  be  always  in  a  position  to 
defend  itself  and  assert  its  rights,  a  nation  must 
maintain  an  army  and  navy  in  a  condition  of 
efficiency  at  all  times,  and  this  means  constant 
practise  of  the  arts  of  war  in  times  of  peace. 

There  is  the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell. 
Those  of  us  who  can  not  assent  to  all  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  philosophy  think  it  leaves  out  of  account 
the  train  of  moral  evils  which  follow  in  the 
physical  wake  of  war:  the  enlarged  sense,  in  ill- 
balanced  minds,  of  the  value  of  violence,  and 
the  diminished  sense  of  the  value  of  self- 
restraint;  the  distorted  popular  view  of  what 
constitutes  justice  in  emergencies;  the  wide 
spread  notion  that  honesty  and  responsibility 
are  elastic  ideals,  to  be  measured  by  the  remote 
ness  or  the  imminence  of  a  crisis.  But  he  would 
say  no;  all  these  things  are  discounted,  not  ig 
nored.  His  theory  is  that  they  are  outweighed 
in  importance  by  the  larger  interests  in  the  op 
posite  scale. 

War  and  the  chase  are  occupations  insepa 
rably  associated  in  the  activities  of  primitive 
man.  Mr.  Roosevelt  does  not  believe  in  get 
ting  too  far  away  from  primitive  man.  His 
theory  of  human  progress  involves  not  the 
wholesale  surrender  of  the  old  order  as  prelim- 

196 


IMPORTANCE   OF   EXERCISE 

inary  to  taking  up  the  new,  but  the  retention  of 
all  that  is  best  in  the  old  as  a  foundation  for 
the  new  to  build  upon.  Yet  no  one  ever  saw 
Theodore  Roosevelt  shooting  at  pigeons  let  out 
of  a  trap  at  so  many  paces.  No  one  ever  knew 
him  to  leave  a  wounded  beast  suffering  in  the 
tracks  where  he  had  shot  it  down.  No  one  ever 
found  in  him  the  least  trace  of  cruelty,  as  he 
sees  it,  in  dealing  with  an  animal  either  wild 
or  tame.  His  home  swarms  with  pets  of  all 
sorts,  from  horses  and  dogs  to  tropical  birds  of 
prey;  his  children  are  brought  up  among  them, 
and  encouraged  to  play  with  them  fearlessly; 
but  the  father's  mandate,  back  of  everything, 
is  unchangeable:  "Be  kind." 

Where  Mr.  Roosevelt  differs  from  most  men 
who  call  themselves  sportsmen  is  that  sport 
with  him  is  only  a  means  to  an  end.  He  does 
not  ride  and  hunt  to  kill  time,  but  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  larger  things  of  his  career. 
Physical  soundness  he  puts  at  the  basis  of  all 
effective  effort  in  the  world.  The  man  who 
lets  his  bodily  force  be  dissipated  by  idleness  he 
regards  as  almost  as  criminal  as  one  who  wrecks 
his  system  by  a  deliberate  course  of  vice.  Pres 
ident  McKinley's  friends  used  to  attribute  his 
ability  to  endure  worry  and  abuse  as  well  as  he 

197 


THE   MAN    ROOSEVELT 


did,  to  his  habit  of  dropping  the  day's  cares 
with  the  day  itself  and  carrying  no  troubles  to 
bed  with  him.  Mr.  Roosevelt  gets  too  health 
ily  tired  by  bedtime  to  have  his  rest  broken,  but 
the  secret  of  his  thriving  so  well  under  his  many 
burdens  is  his  refusal  to  let  anything  whatever 
interfere  with  his  daily  exercise  in  the  open  air. 
No  affair  of  state,  no  social  entertainment,  no 
phase  of  the  weather  has  power  to  postpone 
this  part  of  the  President's  program  of  duty. 

For  a  duty  he  thinks  it,  quite  as  important 
as  the  duty  of  studying  out  economic  problems 
and  satisfying  politicians.  He  feels  that  his 
sound  physique  is  one  of  the  assets  on  which  his 
fellow  citizens  banked  when  they  bespoke  his 
services,  and  that  to  let  it  deteriorate  would 
be  to  rob  them  of  their  dues  to  that  extent. 
Moreover,  hunting  big  game,  hard  riding, 
bouts  with  the  gloves  and  foils,  twenty-mile 
tramps  over  rough  roads,  scaling  mountain 
crags,  polo,  football,  wrestling,  are  to  the 
individual,  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  view,  what 
occasional  stimulation  of  the  war  spirit  is 
to  the  nation.  They  harden  his  muscles,  im 
prove  his  wind  and  steady  his  nerves.  They 
bring  him  face  to  face  with  danger  till  he  learns 
to  despise  it.  They  sharpen  his  senses.  They 

108 


AN  AFTEEXOON  GALLOP. 


PERPETUAL   READINESS 


make  him  resourceful  almost  in  spite  of  him 
self.  They  quicken  his  wit  and  strengthen  his 
will.  They  teach  him  self-care,  self-control, 
self-confidence.  And  no  man  knows,  till  he 
has  been  actually  tested,  how  he  would  act  in 
emergencies. 

It  is  on  his  belief  in  perpetual  readiness — 
not  on  any  liking  for  the  attitude  of  the  bully 
— that  Mr.  Roosevelt  founds  his  assurance  that 
manly  sports,  and  especially  sports  involving 
competition  and  struggle,  are  an  essential  part 
of  every  man's  training  for  life.  What  is  true 
of  the  individual  he  regards  as  true  of  the  na 
tion.  No  people,  he  believes,  ever  kept  them 
selves  in  condition  for  doing  their  best  work  in 
the  world  by  going  out  of  their  way  to  avoid 
trouble  which  was  bound  to  come  sooner  or 
later.  Among  schoolboys  the  most  efficient 
peacemaker  is  he  who  first  by  gentle  words 
strives  to  soothe  the  passions  of  two  combatants, 
but,  if  they  do  not  yield,  is  able  to  seize  both 
by  the  hair  and  knock  their  heads  together  till 
they  consent  to  listen  to  reason. 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  anxiety  for  intervention  in 
Cuba,  even  at  the  cost  of  a  war,  was  founded 
on  his  belief  that  Spain  would  never  compose 
the  troubles  there,  and  that  as  long  as  she  re- 

199 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tained  her  hold  on  the  island  we  should  con 
tinue  to  have  almost  within  gunshot  of  our 
southern  coast  corrupt  government,  official 
cruelty,  revolts,  bloodshed,  a  birthplace  of 
plagues  and  a  refuge  for  runaway  criminals. 
It  was  too  much  like  living  next  door  to  a  pest- 
house;  and  if  the  authors  of  the  nuisance  had 
shown  by  all  their  past  history  an  unwilling 
ness  to  change  their  ways  except  under  compul 
sion,  he  thought  that  the  sooner  the  compulsion 
were  applied  the  better. 

Having  made  up  his  mind  that  Spain,  with 
her  duelist's  sense  of  honor,  would  not  yield 
without  a  fight,  he  was  impatient  for  the  con 
summation.  One  Sunday  morning  in  March, 
1898,  we  were  sitting  in  his  library  discussing 
the  significance  of  the  news  that  Cervera's 
squadron  was  about  to  sail  for  Cuba,  when  he 
suddenly  rose  and  brought  his  two  hands  to 
gether  with  a  resounding  clap. 

"If  I  could  do  what  I  pleased,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "I  would  send  Spain  notice  to-day 
that  we  should  consider  her  despatch  of  that 
squadron  a  hostile  act.  Then,  if  she  didn't  heed 
the  warning,  she  would  have  to  take  the  conse 
quences." 

"You  are  sure,"  I  asked,  "that  it  is  with  un- 
200 


OUR  CASE  AGAINST   SPAIN 

friendly  intent  that  she  is  sending  the  squad 
ron?"  ' 

"What  else  can  it  be?  The  Cubans  have 
no  navy;  therefore  the  squadron  can  not  be 
coming  to  fight  the  insurgents.  The  only  naval 
power  interested  in  Cuban  affairs  is  the  United 
States.  Spain  is  simply  forestalling  the  'brush' 
which  she  knows,  as  we  do,  is  coming  sooner  or 
later." 

"And  if  she  refused  to  withdraw  the  orders 
to  Cervera " 

"I  should  send  out  a  squadron  to  meet  his 
on  the  high  seas  and  smash  it!  Then  I  would 
force  the  fighting  from  that  day  to  the  end  of 
the  war." 

It  was  an  open  secret,  even  then,  that  the 
Cabinet  was  divided  on  the  war  question.  Sec 
retaries  Gage  and  Long  represented  the  peace 
party,  and  Secretaries  Alger  and  Bliss  the  other. 
Secretary  Sherman,  who  as  premier  would  nor 
mally  have  exerted  great  influence  in  the  ex 
ecutive  councils  as  a  champion  of  diplomatic 
methods,  had  become  too  enfeebled  to  take 
any  effective  interest  in  what  was  going  on. 
President  McKinley,  having  heard  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  entertained  some  decided  views  on 
the  demands  of  the  situation,  sent  for  him  one 

201 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


morning  and  listened  to  his  exposition  of  them. 
Later  on  the  same  day,  when  the  subject  came 
up  in  the  Cabinet,  the  President  said  with  a 
smile:  "Gentlemen,  not  one  of  you  has  put  half 
so  much  vigor  into  your  expression  of  opinion 
as  Mr.  Roosevelt,  our  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.  He  has  the  whole  program  of  the 
war  mapped  out." 

"Couldn't  you  get  him  to  make  a  report  in 
writing  for  our  guidance?"  inquired  one  of  the 
party,  adopting  the  President's  jocose  tone. 

"Better  than  that:  I  can  call  him  in  and 
let  you  hear  for  yourselves,"  answered  the 
President. 

There  was  a  general  chorus  of  approval,  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  was  sent  for.  He  responded  at 
once.  Mr.  McKinley  propounded  a  few  ques 
tions  to  set  him  going,  and  the  whole  Cabinet 
leaned  back  in  their  chairs  and  listened  to  a 
second  edition  of  what  the  President  had  al 
ready  heard,  but  delivered  with  increased  em 
phasis  and  annotated  with  many  characteristic 
gestures.  When  the  speech  was  finished,  the 
orator  retired.  The  President  looked  around 
with  an  amused  expression;  three  or  four  of  the 
others  laughed  aloud.  Those  who  did  not 
laugh  were  restrained  by  the  seriousness  of  the 

202 


CORROBORATIVE   TESTIMONY 

crisis,  though  finding  something  funny  in  what 
seemed  to  them  the  overwrought  enthusiasm 
and  the  very  radical  proposals  of  the  young 
Assistant  Secretary.  Before  the  afternoon  was 
over,  the  scene  in  the  Cabinet  chamber  had  be 
come  the  day's  gossip  at  the  Washington  clubs. 
It  seemed  too  good  to  keep.* 

*  The  whole  record  of  this  incident  was  long  ago  transcribed  from 
notes  made  by  me  in  the  spring  of  1898,  with  the  idea  of  some  possible 
historical  use  to  be  made  of  them  later.  I  therefore  feel  the  greatest 
assurance  of  their  correctness,  as  there  was  no  chance  for  my  memory 
to  play  me  tricks  with  the  lapse  of  time.  I  have  lifted  the  passage  bodily 
into  this  book,  in  the  shape  in  which  it  stood  a  great  while  before  ex- 
Secretary  Long  published  his  recollections.  With  all  deference  to  Mr. 
Long,  and  entire  faith  in  his  sincerity  of  purpose,  I  am  bound  to  believe 
that  he  overlooked  one  essential  feature  of  the  story.  He  represents 
Mr.  Roosevelt  as  anxious  to  crush  Cervera's  fleet  on  the  high  seas  in- 
stanter,  and  without  notice;  whereas  my  notes  show  that  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  plan  involved,  as  a  preliminary,  a  warning  to  Spain  that  she  must 
take  the  responsibility  for  whatever  followed. 

To  confirm  my  recollection  of  what  seems  to  me  the  vital  element  in 
this  matter,  I  have  before  me  as  I  write  a  recent  letter  from  a  colleague 
of  Mr.  Long's  in  President  McKinley's  Cabinet,  who  says  that  he  "  re 
calls  distinctly  Mr.  Roosevelt's  response  to  the  invitation  to  lay  his  views 
before  the  whole  Administration  "  ;  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  "declared  em 
phatically  that  the  Spanish  fleet  should  not  be  allowed  to  come  " ;  and 
that  when  "President  McKinley  remarked  that  we  were  still  at  peace 
with  Spain,  and  to  interfere  with  this  fleet  would  be  an  act  of  war,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  replied  that  Spain  should  be  given  to  understand  that  the 
sending  of  that  fleet  here  would  be  considered  an  act  of  war,  and  that  we 
would  govern  ourselves  accordingly  if  it  were  sent." 

A  comparison  of  this  description  of  what  occurred  in  the  Cabinet 
room,  with  my  quotation  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  language  at  our  interview 
in  his  house,  seems  to  me  to  make  the  proof  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  real  po 
sition  as  strong  as  it  could  be  made,  especially  as  the  corroborating  letter 
was  written  without  any  knowledge  of  what  I  had  prepared  for  print. 

203 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Yet  the  same  statesmen  who  gave  vent  most 
heartily  to  their  merriment  at  the  council-table, 
and  let  the  story  leak  out  as  a  choice  tidbit,  were 
among  those  who  cheered  aloud  the  news  of 
Dewey's  victory  at  Manila  two  months  later. 
They  seemed  quite  oblivious  of  the  fact  that 
the  principle  of  a  first  master-stroke  was  the 
same  that  Roosevelt  had  set  forth,  with  other 
names  and  circumstances,  in  his  speech  to  the 
Cabinet;  that  the  despatch  sending  Dewey  to 
the  Philippines  was  signed  by  Roosevelt;  and 
that  the  officer  who  obeyed  the  order  with  such 
splendid  Yankee  dash  was  the  man  on  whom 
Roosevelt  had  fixed  his  eye  for  this  very  job 
before  any  one  knew  positively  that  war  was 
coming. 

The  victory  over  Spain,  the  liberation  of 
Cuba,  the  acquisition  of  an  ungrateful  burden 
in  the  Philippines,  were  only  secondary  results 
of  the  war.  The  largest  was  the  standing  our 
own  nation  suddenly  assumed  before  the  world. 
That  Congress  voted,  with  no  partizan  division, 
a  preliminary  $50,000,000  to  be  spent  at  the 
unlimited  discretion  of  the  President  for  the 
national  defense;  that  when  a  popular  loan  of 
$200,000,000  was  called  for  it  was  sevenfold 
oversubscribed;  that,  although  the  free-coinage 

204 


A  NEW   WORLD  POWER 


ghost  had  been  only  about  one  year  laid,  the 
national  finances  did  not  go  to  a  silver  basis; 
and  that  the  whole  war  practically  consisted 
of  our  two  victories  on  the  sea,  both  exhibiting 
gunnery  unexampled  in  naval  annals:  these 
facts  aroused  Europe  to  a  realization  that  there 
was  a  new  world  power  to  be  reckoned  with  in 
every  international  undertaking  thereafter. 

The  first  proof  came  with  the  campaign  to 
relieve  the  besieged  legations  in  Peking.  Our 
Government  astonished  its  allies  by  the  humane 
attitude  it  maintained  throughout  that  episode, 
and  by  which  it  saved  China  from  summary 
partition  as  the  result  of  the  Boxer  insurrection. 
That  a  nation  commonly  described  as  mer 
cenary  in  spirit  and  devoid  of  the  finer  senti 
ments  should  thus  lead  all  Christendom  in  mag 
nanimity,  was  a  revelation. 

Mr.  McKinley  was  President  during  the 
Chinese  episode.  In  the  establishment  of  The 
Hague  tribunal  of  arbitration,  however,  the 
bulk  of  the  active  work  fell  upon  the  shoulders 
of  President  Roosevelt.  A  man  as  eager  for 
bloodletting  as  he  is  represented  to  be  would 
hardly  have  lent  his  efforts  to  the  support  of 
such  a  peace  project.  The  truth  is  that  no  one 
is  more  willing  than  he  to  meet  others  in  the 

205 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


spirit  of  compromise  where  the  question  at 
issue  is  one  that  will  admit  of  mutual  conces 
sions.  He  merely  distinguishes  between  arbi 
trating  questions  open  to  dispute  and  arbitra 
ting  those  of  which  the  merits  are  already  plain. 
Everything  possible  to  arbitrate  without  injus 
tice,  such  as  the  measure  of  damages  for  injuries 
inflicted  in  one  country  upon  the  citizens  of  an 
other,  he  would  send  without  cavil  to  The 
Hague.  Questions  of  taking  away  land  that 
belongs  to  another  he  would  not. 

For  that  reason  he  induced  Venezuela  and 
the  European  claimants  to  carry  the  issues  in 
dispute  between  them  to  the  great  international 
court,  but  set  up  a  special  commission  to  review 
the  Alaska  boundary  case.  His  theory  was  that 
the  United  States  had  no  concessions  to  make, 
but  was  willing  that  the  other  side  should  thor 
oughly  convince  itself  of  the  hollowness  of  its 
claims  before  surrendering  them.  As  he  said 
once,  a  good  while  before  he  became  President: 
"If  England  wishes  to  settle  the  Alaska  ques 
tion  for  good,  I  should  answer:  'By  all  means. 
But  before  we  begin  to  talk,  gentlemen,  here  is 
our  map!''  The  sequel  of  the  Alaska  discus 
sion  appears  to  have  justified  his  position. 

The  Venezuela  incident,  by  the  way, 
206 


MONROE   DOCTRINE 


brought  into  striking  prominence  the  attitude 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt  toward  the  group  of  Ameri 
can  republics  to  the  south  of  ours.  For  years 
he  had  been  known  as  a  vigorous  champion  of 
the  Monroe  doctrine,  and  no  louder  voice  than 
his  was  heard  in  the  popular  chorus  of  approval 
which  greeted  President  Cleveland's  Venezuela 
message  of  1895.  On  this  apparently  favorable 
disposition  President  Castro  doubtless  traded 
in  his  earlier  dealings  with  the  European  claim 
ants,  and  it  was  some  such  consideration  which 
made  him  so  anxious  to  name  Mr.  Roosevelt  as 
sole  arbitrator. 

But  here  he  was  counting  without  his  host. 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  conception  of  the  duty  of  the 
United  States  to  defend  the  southern  republics 
from  partition  or  absorption  by  any  Old  World 
power  includes  a  strong  sense  of  the  obligation 
of  these  republics  to  abstain  from  gratuitously 
embroiling  the  United  States  with  other  na 
tions.  If  the  little  republics  expect  the  big  re 
public's  aid,  they  must  conduct  themselves  in  a 
manner  to  deserve  it.  No  Central  or  South 
American  state  has  a  right  to  treat  foreigners 
unjustly,  and  then  run  to  the  United  States  for 
protection  as  soon  as  their  victims  threaten  to 
retaliate.  The  United  States  would  not  tol 
ls  207 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


erate  the  seizure  of  an  inch  of  American  terri 
tory  as  a  retaliatory  measure;  but  if  a  Euro 
pean  power  sees  fit  to  give  the  offending  little 
fire-eater  a  sound  spanking,  it  is  not  in  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  code  that  our  Government  must 
interfere. 

This  is  his  well-balanced  view  of  the  Monroe 
doctrine,  and  there  is  real  kindliness  of  spirit 
behind  it.  At  the  same  time  that  he  was  re 
fusing  to  act  as  arbitrator  himself  and  was  main 
taining  a  complacent  demeanor  in  the  presence 
of  the  foreign  naval  demonstration,  he  was  giv 
ing  not  only  his  consent  but  his  encouragement 
to  the  plan  by  which  Herbert  W.  Bowen,  our 
own  minister  at  Caracas,  should  become  Vene 
zuela's  plenipotentiary  in  the  negotiations  with 
the  allies.  It  was  an  extraordinary  concession 
for  a  professedly  neutral  power  to  make  to  a 
party  in  interest  in  such  a  controversy. 

At  the  Easter  season  in  1903  the  Jews  in 
Kishenev,  Russia,  were  attacked  by  mobs,  and 
slain  or  beaten  and  driven  from  their  homes 
without  discrimination  as  to  age  or  sex.  The 
news  of  the  outrages  was  so  rigorously  sup 
pressed  by  the  local  authorities  that  it  did  not 
reach  the  outside  world  till  some  of  the  sufferers 
had  fled  to  this  country  for  refuge  and  told  their 

208 


KISHENEV   MASSACRE 


story  to  gatherings  of  their  coreligionists  in 
New  York  and  elsewhere.  It  is  doubtful,  in 
deed,  whether  the  Czar  learned  what  had  hap 
pened  till  the  harrowing  details  drifted  back  to 
Russia  from  other  countries.  Everything  in 
dicates  that  as  soon  as  he  did  he  took  prompt 
measures  to  punish  the  ringleaders,  and  also  the 
governor  of  the  province  and  other  official  func 
tionaries  whose  seeming  indifference  had  en 
couraged  the  rioters. 

The  Jews  of  the  United  States  and  western 
Europe  were  naturally  much  incensed,  and 
wished  to  have  their  respective  governments 
make  suitable  representations  to  Russia  of  the 
abhorrence  felt  throughout  Christendom  for 
the  outrages,  in  the  hope  that  such  a  united  pro 
test  would  stimulate  the  Czar  to  extra  exertions 
for  the  protection  of  his  helpless  subjects.  To 
this  end  they  drew  up  memorials  for  signa 
ture  by  benevolent  people  of  all  castes  and 
religions,  which  could  be  presented  at  the  court 
of  St.  Petersburg  through  the  usual  diplomatic 
agencies. 

The  wide  publication  of  these  projects 
moved  the  Russian  Government  to  convey  in 
formally  to  the  other  governments,  and  espe 
cially  to  that  of  the  United  States,  an  intima- 

209 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tion  that  it  could  not  consent  to  receive  such 
representations  from  any  source  whatever,  as 
the  subject-matter  was  exclusively  a  domestic 
interest.  The  European  governments  there 
fore  dropped  the  whole  business.  Not  so  the 
Government  at  Washington.  President  Roose 
velt  gave  the  Russian  ambassador  every  oppor 
tunity  to  put  into  formal  shape  the  intimation 
already  informally  thrown  out,  and  when  this 
was  not  done  he  told  the  Jews  that  he  would 
undertake  to  bring  their  paper  to  the  notice  of 
the  Czar.  In  about  a  fortnight  the  memorial, 
signed  by  a  multitude  of  prominent  citizens,  in 
cluding  public  officers,  educators,  business  men 
of  note,  and  clergymen  of  all  faiths,  was  in  his 
hands. 

Onlookers  in  the  Old  World  held  their 
breath  at  his  temerity.  The  press  in  this  coun 
try  discussed  the  situation  from  every  point  of 
view.  Would  the  presentation  of  the  memorial 
under  the  circumstances  be  considered  by  Rus 
sia  an  affront  which  she  must  resent?  Would 
the  refusal  of  the  Russian  Government  to  re 
ceive  the  memorial  be  an  affront  which  we  must 
resent?  Would  the  President  force  the  me 
morial  upon  the  Czar's  attention  in  spite  of 
everything?  Would  the  incident  lead  to  war, 

210 


JEWISH   MEMORIAL 


or,  at  any  rate,  to  a  suspension  of  diplomatic 
relations  for  some  time? 

All  surmises  proved  vain.  The  incident 
was  as  unexciting  as  possible.  The  Russian 
Government  declined  to  receive  the  memorial, 
as  was  expected.  But  no  affront  was  given  or 
assumed.  Our  representative  at  St.  Petersburg 
visited  the  Foreign  Office  and  came  away  with 
out  meeting  with  so  much  as  a  scowl  of  dis 
approval.  Yet,  by  the  clever  handling  of  the 
affair,  all  had  been  done  that  any  one  set  out 
to  do;  for  the  letter  from  Secretary  Hay,  in 
which  our  charge  was  instructed  to  inquire 
whether  the  Russian  Government  would  re 
ceive  the  memorial,  itself  recited  the  full  text 
of  that  document.  The  cause  for  which  the 
American  Jews  were  pleading  had  been  pre 
sented  in  their  own  chosen  form  not  only  to 
Russia  but  to  the  great  tribunal  of  the  world's 
opinion.  The  voice  of  American  humanity 
had  spoken,  and  without  offense,  while  the 
dread  of  a  fatal  breach  of  etiquette  was  silencing 
all  Europe. 

It  is  such  a  position  that  President  Roose 
velt  would  have  the  United  States  occupy  in 
the  sisterhood  of  nations,  as  the  great  peace 
maker,  yet  at  the  same  time  the  fearless  cham- 

211 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


pion  of  justice;  the  leader  of  the  world  in  com 
merce  and  the  useful  arts,  yet  never  flinching 
at  the  menace  of  war  when  a  righteous  cause 
demands  aggression  or  requires  defense.  If 
war  must  come  to  us  at  any  stage  as  an  incident 
of  this  program,  he  would  welcome  it  as  a  na 
tional  inspiration;  if  it  were  forced  upon  us 
when  not  necessary,  he  would  deplore  it;  as  an 
end  in  itself,  or  as  a  means  to  an  unworthy 
achievement,  he  would  resist  it  as  stoutly  as 
he  denounces  peace  bought  at  the  price  of 
dishonor. 


212 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE   SOUTH    AND    THE    NEGRO 

Two  questions  that  blend — A  policy  never  before  tried — Ideal 
conditions  for  inaugurating  it — The  Washington  dinner  inci 
dent — A  needless  uproar — Dr.  Crum's  collectorship. 

THE  Southern  question  in  American  poli 
tics  since  the  reconstruction  era  has  been  sim 
ply  the  negro  question  under  a  larger  name. 
At  least  the  negro  has  been  so  far  the  dominant 
element  in  the  Southern  question  as  to  obscure 
all  the  other  elements.  The  fact  that,  although 
economic  issues  of  great  importance  have  come 
up  for  discussion  and  settlement  in  every  polit 
ical  campaign,  the  menace  of  negro  supremacy 
has  been  too  serious  to  admit  of  any  trifling,  has 
kept  a  large  majority  of  Southern  white  men 
of  all  shades  of  opinion  banded  together  for 
mutual  protection.  This  is  what  is  known  as 
the  Solid  South.  The  Democratic  party,  as  the 
only  generally  recognized  opponent  of  the  party 
to  which  the  negroes  belonged,  has  extended  its 

213 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


name  over  the  heterogeneous  group,  regardless 
of  the  historic  meaning  of  Democracy. 

All  Republican  Presidents  since  Grant  had 
found  the  Southern  question  the  most  trouble 
some  in  the  foreground  of  the  administrative 
field.  All  had  been  embarrassed  by  the  fact 
that  the  votes  of  the  negro  leaders,  good  and 
bad  alike,  had  been  sought  and  used  in  the  last 
national  convention,  and  would  be  in  the  next, 
since  they  counted  for  just  as  much  as  an  equal 
number  of  votes  of  white  delegates.  The  man 
ner  in  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  came  to  the  presi 
dency,  however,  left  him  with  a  free  hand.  He 
owed  nothing  to  any  delegations,  negro  or 
white,  Northern  or  Southern,  in  the  Philadel 
phia  convention  of  1900;  for  he  had  spent  all 
his  time  there  not  in  seeking  the  nomination  for 
Vice-President,  but  in  trying  to  ward  it  off.  He 
had  welcomed  any  aid  he  could  get  toward 
throwing  the  nomination  to  somebody  else;  the 
delegates  who  were  most  enthusiastic  for  him 
provoked  his  displeasure  rather  than  his  favor, 
and  he  did  everything  he  could  to  nullify  their 
efforts.  On  his  accession  to  the  presidency  just 
one  thought  possessed  his  mind  respecting  the 
South:  If  he  could  not  in  his  own  term  break 
its  solidity,  he  could  at  least  set  the  solvent 

214 


REHABILITATING   THE  SOUTH 

forces  at  work  so  that  this  section  would  take 
its  place  politically  with  the  others  under  some 
succeeding  administration. 

On  the  day  of  President  McKinley's  obse 
quies  in  Washington  I  sat  for  an  hour  with  Mr. 
Roosevelt  in  his  temporary  home,  going  over 
with  him  his  plans  for  the  future.  It  was 
strictly  a  friendly  talk,  free  from  the  profes 
sional  savor  on  either  side.  A  month  or  so 
later,  discussing  the  Southern-patronage  ques 
tion  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  I  wrote: 

The  President,  as  a  man  who  believes  in 
parties,  will  prefer  Republicans  to  Democrats, 
and  strong  party  men  to  those  who  are  uncer 
tain  and  indifferent.  But  if  it  came  to  a  ques 
tion  between  an  unfit  Republican  and  a  fit 
Democrat,  he  would  not  hesitate  a  moment  to 
choose  the  Democrat.  It  has  always  been  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  desire  to  see  the  South  back  in  full 
communion  with  the  other  sections  in  conduct 
ing  the  National  Government,  instead  of  stand 
ing  on  the  outside  whenever  a  Republican  ad 
ministration  is  installed  at  Washington.  This 
is  not  the  case  with  any  ofner  section,  and  he 
would  take  great  pride  in  breaking  it  up  in  the 
South. 

And  the  negro?  He  must  take  his  chances 
like  the  rest.  If  he  be  a  man  who  has  earned 
the  respect  of  his  white  neighbors  by  his  efforts 

215 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


to  be  a  good  citizen,  by  avoiding  disreputable 
associations  and  trying  to  be  helpful  in  the  com 
munity  where  he  lives,  he  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  President  Roosevelt  because  of  his  color; 
but  if  he  has  led  a  loose  life,  ignored  his  obli 
gations  to  his  fellow  men  individually  and  to 
society  and  the  law,  he  will  have  no  favor  what 
ever  because  he  is  black  or  because  he  is  a  Re 
publican.  The  standard  of  personal  character 
and  civic  virtue  which  the  President  will  set 
up  for  the  negro's  emulation  is  better  embodied 
in  Booker  T.  Washington  than  in  any  other 
man  of  color  known  to  the  public.  By  this 
measure  every  negro  who  aspires  to  office  will 
be  tested.  By  the  degree  in  which  he  ap 
proaches  or  falls  short  of  it  he  will  be  judged 
fit  or  unfit. 

Of  course,  such  a  policy  in  the  South  meant 
only  one  thing  as  far  as  Mr.  Roosevelt's  imme 
diate  prospects  were  concerned.  It  was  revolu 
tionary,  and  flung  the  gage  of  battle  squarely 
in  the  face  of  Southern  Republicanism,  or 
what  had  passed  for  it  up  to  that  time.  It  said 
to  the  leaders  in  effect:  "I  have  no  use  for  any 
so-called  party  which  exists  for  revenue  only. 
I  may  be  nominated  for  a  second  term  or  I  may 
not,  but  if  I  am  I  shall  be  under  no  obligations 
to  such  an  one  for  votes.  The  idea  that,  in 

216 


INDEPENDENT   APPOINTMENTS 

States  which  have  never  given  a  Republican 
majority  and  have  none  in  sight,  the  forms  of 
partizan  organization  shall  be  kept  up  merely 
as  an  excuse  for  distributing  Federal  patronage, 
is  repugnant  to  the  principles  of  popular  gov 
ernment;  and  the  admission  of  a  troop  of  such 
office-holders  to  a  Republican  national  conven 
tion  once  in  four  years  on  a  footing  of  equality 
with  the  delegates  representing  legitimate  con 
stituencies,  is  a  fraud.  Hereafter  the  South 
shall  be  governed  in  its  Federal  relations  by 
the  best  men  I  can  get  from  either  race  or  either 
party." 

This  idea  President  Roosevelt  began  to 
hammer  home  by  making  appointments  which 
fairly  electrified  the  South.  He  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  task  in  October,  1901,  and  winning 
golden  opinions  on  every  side,  when — he  enter 
tained  Booker  Washington  at  dinner  at  the 
White  House. 

It  has  been  widely  remarked  that,  in  the 
light  of  his  present  knowledge,  neither  party 
to  the  incident  would  repeat  it  were  he  to  live 
the  same  period  over.  I  do  not  believe  that  any 
one  has  authority  to  make  such  a  statement. 
Certainly  neither  participant  has  any  apology 
to  offer  on  grounds  of  propriety  or  feels  the 

217 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


slightest  compunction  or  regret  on  moral 
grounds.  Mr.  Washington  is  one  of  the  men 
whom  President  Roosevelt  most  admires,  and 
whom  he  is  proudest  to  number  among  his 
friends.  They  meet  on  terms  of  frank  equality, 
except  inasmuch  as  the  presidential  office  itself 
confers  a  special  dignity  upon  its  occupant 
which  all  patriotic  Americans  recognize.  The 
most  that  a  commentator  could  claim  in  deroga 
tion  of  the  dinner  incident  is  that  things  which 
are  right  in  themselves  are  sometimes  inexpe 
dient  because  the  conditions  are  not  ripe  for 
them. 

I  happen  to  know  that  this  affair  was  not 
of  Mr.  Washington's  seeking.  He  had  been 
sent  for  because  the  President  wished  to  con 
sult  him  on  a  special  subject.  Realizing  that 
any  needless  publicity  given  to  his  relations 
with  the  President  might  lay  him  open  to  the 
suspicion  of  having  political  ends  to  serve  and 
thus  interfere  with  his  educational  work,  he 
wished  to  avoid  newspaper  mention  of  his  visits 
to  the  capital  as  far  as  possible.  To  that  end 
one  of  his  friends  came  to  me  in  his  behalf  for 
advice  as  to  how  he  could  get  into  and  out  of 
the  city  and  make  his  brief  call  at  the  White 
House  without  meeting  any  reporters.  I  sug- 

218 


WASHINGTON   DINNER 


gested  a  plan  which  worked  admirably  as  far 
as  it  went,  but  failed  at  its  final  stage  because 
we  could  not  very  well  make  the  President  a 
party  to  it. 

Mr.  Washington  escaped  the  dreaded  inter 
viewers,  but  fell  a  victim  to  the  routine  of  the 
executive  mansion.  It  was  a  custom,  devised 
for  the  convenience  of  the  local  press,  to  fur 
nish  to  the  doorkeepers  the  names  of  all  guests 
received  by  the  President  out  of  office  hours, 
and  the  doorkeepers  communicated  this  list  to 
any  reporter  who  called  in  the  evening.  The 
uniform  practise  was  followed  in  this  instance, 
and  the  next  morning's  Washington  Post  con 
tained  a  two-line  paragraph,  in  an  obscure  place 
at  the  bottom  of  an  inside  page:  "Booker  T. 
Washington,  of  Tuskegee,  Ala.,  dined  with  the 
President  last  evening."  These  facts  appear 
here  for  the  first  time  in  print,  because  I  feel 
that  their  correct  statement  is  only  just  to  both 
parties  to  the  dinner  episode.  It  was  highly 
creditable  to  Mr.  Washington  that  he  did  noth 
ing  to  promote,  but  everything  in  his  power  to 
prevent,  the  exploitation  of  the  honor  shown 
him;  and  no  more  contemptible  slander  was 
ever  cast  upon  the  President  than  the  charge 
that  he  arranged  the  whole  business  for  polit- 

219 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ical  effect,  in  order  to  hold  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  negro  vote  in  spite  of  his  deposal  of  sundry 
leaders. 

Had  the  perfunctory  announcement  I  have 
quoted  been  never  so  widely  copied,  but  allowed 
to  stand  without  comment,  no  trouble  would 
have  resulted.  The  South  has  only  itself — or 
its  torrential  journalism — to  thank  for  the  com 
motion  aroused  among  the  negroes  by  the  news. 
Mr.  Washington  was  not  the  only  negro  who 
had  enjoyed  the  hospitalities  of  the  White 
House.  Moreover,  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  the  first 
Republican  President  since  the  civil  war,  not 
excepting  Mr.  Hayes,  who  had  gone  vigor 
ously  into  the  work  of  restoring  the  South  to 
its  heritage  of  full  membership  in  the  Union, 
with  due  regard  for  the  wish  of  the  superior 
race  to  rule.  He  was  a  Caucasian  to  the  tips 
of  his  fingers.  He  was  of  Southern  ancestry 
on  his  mother's  side,  and  proud  of  it.  Having 
been  still  in  pinafores  when  Richmond  fell,  no 
bitterness  lurked  in  his  soul  for  the  Confeder 
ates  of  forty  years  ago.  He  was  hoping  to  mark 
his  administration  in  history  by  leaving  the 
South  politically  regenerated;  this  stood,  in 
fact,  first  among  the  ambitions  he  cherished  for 
his  purely  domestic  policy.  No  man  could 

220 


UPROAR   IN   THE  SOUTH 

have  been  more  ideally  adapted  for  the  work 
he  had  in  view,  if  the  people  for  whom  he  was 
laboring  had  let  him  carry  out  his  plans  in  his 
own  way. 

They  did  not.  A  few  hysterical  Southern 
newspapers  took  up  the  subject  of  the  Wash 
ington  dinner  as  if  it  had  been  intended  for  a 
challenge,  instead  of  a  mere  incident  of  the 
usual  routine  of  life  at  the  White  House.  They 
began  by  declaring  that  this  one  act  had  set  at 
naught  every  good  thing  the  President  had  done 
in  the  South;  that  it  proved  him  a  hypocrite 
in  his  pretensions  of  sympathy  with  the  South 
ern  people;  that  it  had  raised  a  sectional  bar 
rier  which  could  not  now  be  removed  till  an 
other  administration  had  been  installed  at  the 
seat  of  government;  that  henceforth  the  peo 
ple  of  the  South  were  warned  that  Roosevelt- 
ism  "meant  nigger  supremacy  as  surely  as 
Grantism  did";  and  so  forth.  Some  of  the 
clergy  echoed  this  silly  chatter,  and  mixed  poli 
tics  and  sectionalism  with  their  religious 
teachings. 

Even  Mrs.  Roosevelt  was  not  spared;  for 
a  long  time  I  kept  on  my  desk  as  a  curios 
ity  an  illustration  of  a  stripe  of  chivalry  for 
which  the  higher  latitudes  have  no  room  ex- 

221 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


cept  in  the  hospitals — a  cartoon  representing 
the  President  and  his  wife  at  table,  his  face 
wearing  a  broad  smile  of  delight  while  she 
assiduously  pressed  dainties  upon  a  hideous 
black  savage  seated  between  them.  This,  I  am 
informed,  was  suppressed  soon  after  its  issue, 
when  an  attempt  was  made  to  circulate  it  gra 
tuitously  in  a  political  campaign,  but  the  better 
element  in  the  local  Democratic  management 
rebelled  at  the  idea  of  using  such  weapons. 

Of  course,  though  intelligent  negroes  of  the 
Washington  type  were  not  thrown  off  their  bal 
ance  by  all  this  upheaval  among  the  whites  of 
the  South,  it  could  have  only  one  effect  upon 
the  ignorant  and  impressionable  element.  They 
saw  in  it  a  sign  that  a  second  Lincoln  had 
come  to  the  rescue  of  their  race — that  as  the 
great  emancipator  had  stricken  the  shackles 
from  their  bodies,  so  his  successor  had  broken 
through  the  wall  of  color  caste  and  put  them 
upon  social  equality  with  their  white  neigh 
bors,  which  they  would  only  have  to  assert 
thereafter  in  order  to  compel  recognition. 
Washington  himself  had  the  good  sense  to  pass 
the  whole  matter  by  without  a  word  beyond  his 
usual  counsels  to  his  people,  of  patience,  for 
bearance,  gentleness,  persistence  in  well-doing. 

222 


ADVICE  FROM   ALL   SIDES 

The  President  made  no  public  utterance  what 
ever,  and  in  private  conversation  with  his 
friends  showed  no  anger,  but  only  pity  for  the 
folly  of  a  few  hotheads  which  was  bound  to 
bring  trouble  in  its  train  for  the  sane  and  sober 
majority. 

The  White  House  mails,  however,  were 
flooded  with  correspondence  on  the  subject. 
So-called  friends  wrote  to  urge  the  President 
to  take  the  South  at  its  word  and  give  it  negro 
supremacy  with  a  vengeance  from  that  day  for 
ward;  others  admonished  him  that  the  uproar 
had  been  raised  by  Southern  politicians  with  a 
design  of  frightening  decent  Democrats  out  of 
accepting  office  at  his  hands  thereafter,  and 
advised  that  he  avoid  humiliation  by  building 
up  a  white  Republican  organization  through 
out  the  South.  Anonymous  scrawls  served 
notice  on  him  that  he  must  never  attempt  to 
set  his  foot  on  Southern  soil  again  for  the  rest 
of  his  term,  and  that  he  must  keep  all  mem 
bers  of  his  family  in  the  North  also,  if  he 
would  save  himself  and  them  from  insult  or 
worse. 

These  letters,  friendly,  unfriendly  and  in 
different,  went  together  into  the  waste-basket. 
The  President  changed  not  a  tittle  of  his  pro- 

16 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


gram  in  response  to  them.  He  had  begun  by 
appointing  to  a  Federal  judgeship  in  Alabama, 
on  Booker  Washington's  advice,  Ex-Governor 
Thomas  G.  Jones,  a  Democrat,  an  ex-Confed 
erate,  and  a  citizen  of  the  highest  personal 
worth  and  honor.  He  had  followed  this  with 
the  choice  of  Edgar  S.  Wilson,  a  white  Demo 
crat  of  recognized  position,  for  marshal  of  the 
northern  district  of  Mississippi. 

He  had  no  backward  step  to  take,  and  he 
went  on  doing  as  before,  selecting  his  South 
ern  appointees  by  the  same  standards,  and  meet 
ing  nowhere  a  rebuff  from  a  high-minded  and 
educated  white  Democrat.  Men  like  Robert 
C.  Lee  in  Mississippi  and  Thomas  R.  Roulhac 
in  Alabama  were  not  frightened  by  the  pass 
ing  flurry.  It  was  soon  plain  that  the  half- 
civilized  prophets  who  had  forecast  the  down 
fall  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  policy  did  not  know  the 
better  people  of  their  own  section.  He  visited 
Nashville,  Tenn.,  to  assist  in  welcoming  home 
Vice-Governor  Luke  E.  Wright  from  the 
Philippine  Islands;  but,  beyond  a  few  cat-calls 
and  growls  which  greeted  his  carriage  in  one 
of  the  slums  of  the  city,  no  unpleasant  mani 
festation  was  made  in  any  quarter.  He  went 
to  Charleston  at  the  invitation  of  leading  citi- 

224 


COURTEOUS    TREATMENT 

zens  to  present  a  sword  to  his  late  comrade- 
in-arms,  Major  Micah  Jenkins;  nothing  oc 
curred  to  mar  the  decorum  of  the  occasion  or 
to  indicate  any  decline  in  the  local  sentiment 
of  respect  for  the  chief  magistrate.  A  hunt 
ing  expedition  was  organized  for  his  benefit  in 
Mississippi,  and  neither  there  nor  on  the  jour 
neys  back  and  forth  was  there  any  show  of  hos 
tile  feeling.  In  all  these  instances  members  of 
the  suite  who  accompanied  him  thought  they 
discovered  a  subdued  quality  in  the  popular  en 
thusiasm  by  comparison  with  other  receptions 
of  presidential  parties  in  the  South,  but  this 
was  far  from  being  a  serious  drawback,  and 
there  was  certainly  not  enough  of  a  change  to 
dampen  the  enjoyment  of  the  President  himself. 
A  fresh  outbreak  of  excitement  occurred 
after  the  Charleston  visit,  when,  at  the  end  of 
a  long  inquiry  into  the  merits  of  the  respective 
candidates,  the  President  appointed  Dr.  Will 
iam  D.  Crum,  a  colored  physician,  collector 
of  customs  at  that  port.  Crum  was  a  citizen 
of  character  and  standing.  He  was  an  edu 
cated  man,  and  at  the  head  of  his  profession 
among  his  own  people.  The  whites  all  spoke 
well  of  him,  especially  of  his  unobtrusiveness 
and  generally  self-respecting  attitude.  Any 

225 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


note  bearing  his  indorsement  was  readily  dis 
counted  at  the  banks.  He  was  prominent  in 
the  local  colored  charities.  In  every  way  he 
ranked  as  the  leading  negro  in  his  part  of  the 
South.  The  white  men  who  had  most  vigor 
ously  pressed  the  opposition  to  him  were  of 
the  old  school  of  Southern  Republicans  with 
whom  the  President  was  wholly  out  of  sym 
pathy. 

In  other  parts  of  the  South — notably  in 
Georgia,  Louisiana,  and  Mississippi  —  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  commissioned  or  recommissioned 
a  few  negroes  of  the  higher  type  to  offices  where 
least  objection  could  be  raised  by  the  white 
people.  These  appointments  had  met  some 
times  with  pronounced  approval,  sometimes 
with  a  discreet  reserve,  always  with  a  sensible 
recognition  of  the  situation.  Compared  with 
other  Republican  Presidents,  he  had  made  a 
very  sparing  use  of  his  prerogative,  measured 
by  the  percentage  of  negroes  in  the  local  Re 
publican  contingent.  In  South  Carolina  there 
was  a  paucity  of  offices  that  carried  any  dignity 
with  them.  Practically  the  list  consisted  of 
the  postmastership  and  the  collectorship  of  cus 
toms  at  Charleston,  the  district  attorneyship  and 
the  collectorship  of  internal  revenue.  The  cen- 

226 


CHARLESTON   COLLECTORSHIP 

sus  of  the  State  showed  nearly  20,000  more 
negroes  than  whites  of  voting  age  in  the  popu 
lation.  One  office  in  the  four  of  any  conse 
quence,  therefore,  seemed  to  the  President  not 
an  undue  proportion  to  be  accredited  to  the 
negroes,  even  admitting  the  wide  prevalence  of 
illiteracy  among  them.  The  office  which  a 
negro  could  hold  presumptively  with  least  lia 
bility  to  offend  his  white  neighbors  was  the  col- 
lectorship  of  customs.  The  others  would  be 
likely  to  bring  him  into  bodily  contact  with 
the  whites;  the  routine  duties  of  this  one  could 
be  administered  through  a  deputy  and  subordi 
nates,  the  collector  himself  occupying  an  inner 
room  of  the  custom-house.  Here  he  could  read 
his  mail,  dictate  letters,  revise  and  sign  docu 
ments  prepared  for  him  by  trained  clerks;  the 
port's  business,  in  short,  might  be  transacted 
from  year's  end  to  year's  end  without  any  out 
sider's  discovering  whether  the  collector  was 
tall  or  short,  good-looking  or  ugly,  deaf,  dumb, 
blind  or  normal,  white,  black  or  copper-colored. 
Hardly,  however,  had  the  report  gone  forth 
that  the  President  intended  appointing  Crum, 
before  the  White  House  was  deluged  with  let 
ters  and  telegrams  and  marked  newspapers  from 
a  little  group  of  Charlestonians  who  assumed, 

227 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


after  the  Tooley  Street  precedent,  to  speak  for 
all  the  people.  Chief  among  the  remonstrants 
was  one  who  asserted  that  the  President  during 
his  visit  to  the  Charleston  exposition  in  the 
spring  of  1902  had  pledged  his  word  to  three 
prominent  white  citizens  that  he  would  never 
appoint  a  negro  to  office  in  that  city.  The 
fallacy  of  this  charge  was,  of  course,  perfectly 
plain  to  every  one  in  the  President's  confidence, 
who  knew  what  plan  he  was  consistently  carry 
ing  out  in  the  South  and  what  relation  the 
South  Carolina  offices  bore  to  this.  But  set 
ting  aside  all  considerations  of  the  insult  in 
tended,  Mr.  Roosevelt  wrote  to  one  of  the  trio 
concerned : 

"How  any  one  could  have  gained  the  idea 
that  I  had  said  that  I  would  not  appoint  repu 
table  and  upright  colored  men  to  office  when 
objection  was  made  to  them  on  account  of  their 
color,  I  confess  I  am  wholly  unable  to  under 
stand.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  to  Charleston 
last  spring  I  had  made,  and  since  that  time  I 
have  made,  a  number  of  such  appointments 
from  several  States  in  which  there  is  a  consid 
erable  colored  population.  .  .  .  These  appoint 
ments  of  colored  men  have  in  no  State  made 
more  than  a  small  proportion  of  the  total  num- 

228 


DOOR  OF   HOPE 


her  of  appointments.  I  am  unable  to  see  how 
I  can  legitimately  be  asked  to  make  an  excep 
tion  for  South  Carolina. 

"So  far  as  I  legitimately  can  I  shall  always 
endeavor  to  pay  regard  to  the  wishes  and  feel 
ings  of  the  people  of  each  locality,  but  I  can  not 
consent  to  take  the  position  that  the  door  of 
hope — the  door  of  opportunity — is  to  be  shut 
upon  any  man,  no  matter  how  worthy,  purely 
upon  the  grounds  of  race  or  color." 

Before  dropping  this  subject  I  can  not  for 
bear  citing  a  few  facts  which  throw  an  inter 
esting  side-light  upon  the  commotion  raised  in 
the  South  by  the  President's  attitude  toward  the 
negro.  Elsewhere  some  mention  is  made  of  the 
Indianola  incident,  in  which  a  mob  in  a  Mis 
sissippi  village  drove  an  unoffending  colored 
woman  out  of  her  place  as  postmaster  because 
the  white  citizens  could  not  bear  to  receive  their 
mail  from  the  hands  of  a  negress.  The  Post 
master-General  closed  the  office,  thereby  com 
pelling  its  patrons  to  send  several  miles  to  an 
other  office  for  their  mail.  The  messenger  em 
ployed  for  this  service,  and  paid  by  the  patrons 
out  of  their  own  purses,  is  a  negro;  so  that  their 
mail  actually  comes  to  them  now  from  a  pair  of 
black  hands,  the  only  difference  being  that  the 

229 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


hands  are  those  of  a  privately  hired  man  instead 
of  a  woman  with  a  Government  commission. 

A  young  Southerner  of  blue  blood,  good 
education,  and  generally  progressive  ideas,  and 
a  warm  friend  and  admirer  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
withal,  said  to  me  one  day:  "I  love  that  man; 
I  would  do  anything  in  the  world  for  him, 
follow  him  anywhere.  But  the  one  thing  in 
his  career  which  I  shall  never  get  over  is  the 
Booker  Washington  incident.  Understand  me : 
I  do  not  disparage  Washington's  work — I  ap 
preciate  it  as  much  as  you  do.  I  admit  all  that 
you  say  of  his  personal  worth.  He  has  been  in 
my  mother's  parlor,  and  invited  to  sit  down 
there.  I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  had  any 
feeling  about  the  President's  asking  him  to  a 
lunch  or  dinner  by  themselves.  But  to  invite 
him  to  the  table  with  ladies — that  is  what  no 
Southerner  can  brook!" 

But  last  and  best,  note  this:  In  the  fall  of 
1903  there  was  a  gathering  of  bishops  and  clergy 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  ministry  in  Wash 
ington  to  celebrate  an  important  event  in  the 
history  of  the  diocese.  The  President  had  con 
sented  to  take  part  in  the  ceremonies,  and  in 
his  turn  gave  a  reception  at  the  White  House 
to  the  visiting  delegates.  He  had  no  share  in 

230 


SUBTLE  DISTINCTIONS 


making  out  the  list  of  invitations,  but  left  all 
such  details  to  the  managers  of  the  affair,  who 
were  largely  Southern  clergymen.  Among 
those  who  responded  were  a  negro  archdeacon 
from  North  Carolina,  with  his  wife,  and  the 
negro  rector  of  a  flourishing  parish  in  Mary 
land.  All  met  on  an  outwardly  equal  footing 
under  the  President's  roof;  all  joined  in  par 
taking  of  the  refreshments  spread  for  them, 
eating  from  the  same  set  of  plates  and  drinking 
from  the  same  set  of  glasses,  some  sitting  and 
some  standing,  but  with  no  social  or  race  lines 
apparently  drawn  between  any  classes  in  the 
assemblage.  Yet  the  Southern  ministers  and 
bishops  did  not  seem  to  be  at  all  disconcerted, 
and  not  a  Southern  newspaper  raised  its  protest 
at  their  share  in  this  crime  against  Caucasian 
civilization! 

Is  it  wonderful  that  even  so  discerning  a 
mind  as  the  President's  is  unable  to  grasp  the 
subtle  distinctions  which  his  social  censors  have 
tried  to  force  upon  him? 


231 


CHAPTER   XIV 

CAPITAL  AND  LABOR 

Combination  in  both   fields — Labor   unions  and  the  civil  service 

The  Miller  case — Overlooked  facts  in  the  coal  arbitration — 
— Things  a  demagogue  would  not  have  done. 

IT  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  hear  Theodore 
Roosevelt  denounced  as  a  demagogue  because 
of  his  attitude  toward  what  is  known  as  the 
labor  problem.  Now,  the  term  demagogue  is 
rather  hard  to  define.  To  my  mind  it  seems 
to  mean  a  man  of  higher  intelligence  bending 
his  judgment  hypocritically  to  the  passing 
whims  of  the  mob  in  order  to  win  its  favor. 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  views  on  labor  questions,  how 
ever,  are  a  necessary  outgrowth  from  his  funda 
mental  opinions  on  economics  and  politics  at 
large.  This  statement,  which  seems  only  his 
due,  I  offer  with  the  greater  cheerfulness  be 
cause  there  is  no  subject  of  difference  between 
us  which  makes  the  sparks  fly  more  actively 
when  we  get  into  a  discussion  of  it. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
232 


EQUAL   RIGHTS 


unqualified  belief  in  combination  and  organ 
ization  as  a  means  of  accomplishing  results  in 
public  fields  of  activity.  What  he  believes  in 
for  politics,  for  religion,  for  trade,  for  legisla 
tion,  he  believes  in  equally  for  labor.  He  has 
never  discouraged  combinations  among  capital 
ists  except  where  they  have  violated  the  law, 
and  has  advocated  no  laws  of  repression  except 
such  as  would  prevent  inhumanity  in  the  treat 
ment  of  some  helpless  class ;  by  parity  of  reason 
ing  he  not  only  has  not  discouraged,  but  has 
freely  encouraged,  combinations  among  wage- 
workers,  though  always  drawing  the  line  sharply 
at  the  point  where,  in  his  opinion,  they  tended 
to  substitute  tyranny  for  fair  play  or  lawless 
ness  for  honorable  self-assertion.  The  diffi 
culty  of  locating  that  point  in  certain  cases 
leaves  a  considerable  margin  for  ethical  debate 
and  criticism.  To  that  extent  Mr.  Roosevelt 
has  sometimes  laid  himself  open  to  attack  on 
the  score  of  misjudgment;  but  I  have  never 
heard  his  sincerity  of  motive  successfully  as 
sailed. 

Take  the  case  of  the  typographical  unions 
and  their  kindred  organizations  for  an  illus 
tration.  As  Civil-Service  Commissioner,  it  was 
his  constant  endeavor  to  have  the  Government 

233 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Printing  Office  brought  under  the  merit  sys 
tem.  A  good  many  opponents  of  the  plan  re 
minded  him  of  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  a 
mechanical  trade,  so  largely  governed  by  com 
binations,  in  the  same  way  as  with  clerical 
labor,  which  was  unorganized.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
brushed  these  objections  aside.  The  unions, 
he  declared,  ought  to  be  the  best  possible  friends 
of  the  merit  system  if  their  claim  were  honest 
that  they  existed  for  the  improvement  of  their 
craft.  The  requirement  of  a  merit  test  for 
admission  to  the  Government  Printing  Office 
would  tend  to  raise  the  standard  of  public  serv 
ice  in  the  typographic  and  allied  arts,  and  he 
should  ask  the  most  expert  craftsmen  to  help 
him  in  his  effort,  even  to  the  extent  of  prepar 
ing  the  rules  for  examining  applicants.  When 
warned  that  this  meant  the  permanent  control 
of  the  office  by  the  unions,  he  answered  that, 
if  the  Government  obtained  better  service  as  a 
consequence,  he  could  not  see  what  question 
could  be  raised  as  to  the  element  in  control; 
but  that  if  an  attempt  were  ever  made — which 
he  did  not  expect — to  exercise  such  control  im 
properly,  it  could  and  would  be  checked  at 
once. 

An  appeal  was  accordingly  made  to  the  best 

234 


MILLER  CASE 


practical  printers  within  reach  to  lend  a  hand 
at  the  organization  of  the  office  on  a  merit 
basis.  It  did  not  succeed  at  once,  and  the 
formal  classification  was  delayed  till  Mr.  Roose 
velt  had  been  some  time  separated  from  the 
Civil-Service  Commission.  When  the  change 
was  made,  however,  it  was  on  the  lines  he 
had  laid  down.  The  first  effect,  as  had 
been  predicted,  was  to  establish  the  unions 
firmly  as  the  dominant  force  in  the  office.  Prac 
tically  this  made  no  difference  in  existing  con 
ditions,  for  the  printers,  binders,  engineers,  etc., 
who  in  the  past  had  been  appointed  to  places 
there  as  a  matter  of  political  favor,  had  always 
been  either  members  of  the  unions  or  candidates 
for  membership ;  no  politician  of  influence 
enough  to  command  such  patronage  had  dared 
go  outside  of  the  unions  and  their  waiting  lists 
in  choosing  its  beneficiaries. 

Matters  went  along  smoothly  enough  till  the 
Miller  case  came  up  last  summer.  William 
A.  Miller,  assistant  foreman  in  the  bindery 
branch  of  the  office,  was  a  non-union  man.  He 
had  formerly  belonged  to  the  union,  but  had 
been  expelled  because,  in  defiance  of  the  rules 
of  Xhe  union,  he  had  pointed  the  way  for  the 
Government's  use  of  cheaper  methods  of  manu- 

235 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


facture,  thus  effecting  a  saving  estimated  at 
$8,000  a  year.  From  the  day  of  their  split  the 
union  opened  a  systematic  warfare  upon  him 
with  the  purpose  of  driving  him  from  his  place. 
It  succeeded  at  last  by  threatening  to  strike 
unless  he  were  removed. 

Miller's  protest  was  carried  to  President 
Roosevelt,  who,  on  the  facts  as  presented — that 
Miller  was  a  competent  workman,  but  had  been 
dismissed  from  public  employ  because  the  union 
had  expelled  him — ordered  his  reinstatement  in 
a  letter  which  also  said :  "There  is  no  objection 
to  the  employees  of  the  Government  Printing 
Office  constituting  themselves  into  a  union  if 
they  so  desire;  but  no  rules  or  resolutions  of 
that  union  can  be  permitted  to  override  the 
laws  of  the  United  States,  which  it  is  my  sworn 
duty  to  enforce."  In  a  later  communication 
the  President  quoted  the  judgment  of  the  An 
thracite  Coal  Strike  Commission,  "that  no  per 
son  shall  be  refused  employment  or  in  any  way 
be  discriminated  against  on  account  of  mem 
bership  or  non-membership  in  any  labor  organ 
ization,"  and  added:  "I  heartily  approved  of 
this  award  and  judgment  by  the  commission 
appointed  by  me,  which  itself  included  a  mem 
ber  of  a  labor  union.  This  commission  was 

236 


OATH   OR  RESIGNATION 


dealing  with  labor  organizations  working  for 
private  employers.  It  is,  of  course,  mere  ele 
mentary  decency  to  require  that  all  the  Gov 
ernment  departments  shall  be  handled  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  principle  thus  clearly  and 
fearlessly  enunciated." 

The  union  yielded  the  point,  but  in  a  dis 
satisfied  and  resentful  spirit.  Rumors  reached 
the  President's  ears  that  there  would  be  a  gen 
eral  strike  presently  throughout  the  Govern 
ment  Printing  Office  as  an  expression  of  sym 
pathy  with  the  defeated  binders.  His  response 
to  that  was  an  order  that  every  employee  in  the 
big  establishment  should  be  regularly  sworn 
into  the  service.  Those  who  did  not  care  to  be 
sworn  had  the  privilege  of  resigning.  All  sub 
scribed  to  the  oath,  which  wiped  out  the  last 
danger  of  an  embarrassing  revolt. 

To  clinch  this  business,  Mr.  Roosevelt  ac 
cepted  an  invitation  to  visit  Syracuse,  N.  Y., 
on  Labor  Day  and  review  the  parade  of  the 
labor  unions  of  that  city  and  the  surrounding 
towns.  It  was  an  extraordinary  compliment 
for  a  President  of  the  United  States  to  pay  to 
a  single  community  and  a  single  element  in 
that  community;  the  invitation  was  undoubt 
edly  accepted  for  the  double  purpose  of  show- 

237 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ing  that  the  Government  Printing-Office  epi 
sode  must  not  be  interpreted  as  indicative  of 
the  President's  hostility  to  organized  labor  in 
its  proper  field,  and  also  as  a  challenge  to  cer 
tain  loud-mouthed  agitators  who  had  declared 
that  because  of  the  stand  he  had  taken  in  the 
Miller  case  the  working  people  of  the  country 
would  thenceforth  turn  their  backs  upon  him. 
The  visit  was  a  success.  No  such  labor  parade 
had  ever  been  witnessed  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  paraders  was  unques 
tionable. 

The  binders'  union  now  began  to  attack 
Miller  from  a  new  quarter.  One  reason  why 
he  had  been  driven  out  of  their  organization, 
they  declared,  was  that  he  was  morally  worth 
less;  and  they  insisted  that  his  record,  if 
searched,  would  show  him  to  be  a  bigamist  and 
otherwise  an  unfit  associate  for  respectable  men 
and  women.  The  reservation  of  this  consid 
eration  till  the  other  had  been  disposed  of  was 
a  shrewd  but  not  very  reputable  bit  of  tac 
tics.  Its  purpose  was  revealed  by  a  preamble 
and  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Central  Labor 
Union  of  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  mailed  broad 
cast  to  labor  unions  all  over  the  country,  in 
which,  among  other  things,  it  was  declared  that 

238 


CONFUSING   THE   ISSUES 


"whereas  the  President  of  the  United  States  has 
seen  fit  to  reinstate  W.  A.  Miller  .  .  .  notwith 
standing  the  overwhelming  evidence  of  his 
moral  turpitude,  and  has  also  committed  him 
self  to  the  policy  of  the  open  shop,  .  .  .  the 
order  of  the  President  can  not  be  regarded  in 
any  but  an  unfriendly  light/'  and  organized 
labor  everywhere  was  "urged  to  petition  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  modify  his 
order  of  no  discrimination,  and  order  W.  A. 
Miller's  dismissal  from  the  Government  serv 
ice." 

Here,  as  will  be  seen,  an  effort  was  de 
liberately  made  to  confuse  the  public  mind  by 
merging  two  wholly  separate  issues.  The 
President  had  never  passed  upon  Miller's  pri 
vate  morals,  for  no  such  subject  had  been  pre 
sented  to  him  for  adjudication.  He  had  be 
fore  him  only  the  question  whether  a  man  who 
was  trying  to  earn  his  living  at  a  legitimate 
trade,  and  the  quality  of  whose  craftsmanship 
had  not  been  assailed,  should  be  ousted  from 
Government  employ  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  he  was  not  a  member  of  a  labor  union. 
The  dragging  up  of  Miller's  alleged  unlawful 
domestic  relations  was  absolutely  foreign  to  the 
matter  in  hand.  It  was  either  an  afterthought 

17 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


on  the  part  of  his  accusers,  or  else  had  been 
designedly  kept  back  for  the  purpose  of  en 
trapping  the  President.  The  resolutions  of  the 
Central  Labor  Union,  if  accepted  at  their  face 
value  by  other  unions  and  the  public,  would 
convict  the  President  of  having  wittingly  stood 
sponsor  for  a  man  of  bad  character  for  the  sake 
of  putting  an  affront  upon  organized  labor, 
when  nothing  could  have  been  further  from 
the  truth. 

Many  a  man  would  have  been  so  disgusted 
by  such  double-dealing  as  to  throw  over  all 
efforts  to  deal  courteously  or  even  considerately 
with  its  perpetrators.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  on  the 
contrary,  feeling  that  a  few  schemers  should 
not  be  allowed  to  damage  the  cause  of  a  mul 
titude  of  deserving  men,  has  maintained  as 
friendly  an  attitude  as  before  toward  the  great 
body  of  workingmen.  Those  who  have  tried 
to  make  political  capital  of  the  Miller  incident 
would  be  interested  in  reading  a  correspond 
ence  between  the  President  and  a  timid  friend 
who  was  much  concerned  over  his  future.  The 
friend  adjured  him  to  throw  Miller  over 
board  on  any  pretext,  as  otherwise  the  whole 
force  in  the  Government  Printing  Office  would 
go  out  on  strike,  and  this  would  complicate 

240 


QUICK   WORK 


the  politics  of  the  situation  dreadfully.  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  answer  contained  this  rather  plain 
English:  "Of  course  I  will  not  for  one  moment 
submit  to  dictation  by  the  labor  unions  any 
more  than  by  the  trusts,  no  matter  what  the 
effect  on  the  presidential  election  may  be.  .  .  . 
I  will  proceed  upon  the  only  plan  possible  for 
a  self-respecting  American  President,  and  treat 
each  man  on  his  merits  as  a  man.  The  labor 
unions  shall  have  a  square  deal,  and  the  cor 
porations  shall  have  a  square  deal,  and,  in  addi 
tion,  all  private  citizens  shall  have  a  square 
deal.  ...  If  those  labor-union  men  strike,  not 
one  of  them  will  do  another  stroke  of  Govern 
ment  work  while  I  am  President." 

The  same  spirit  was  shown  in  the  case  of 
the  Arizona  mining  strike  riots  in  1903,  when 
the  Governor  notified  the  President  of  the  in 
ability  of  the  civil  authorities  to  control  the 
mob.  Within  thirty  minutes  from  the  receipt 
of  this  telegram  a  detachment  of  United  States 
troops  was  on  its  way  to  the  scene  of  disorder. 

The  anthracite-coal  strike  illustrated  in 
still  another  fashion  Mr.  Roosevelt's  method 
of  meeting  a  labor  crisis.  That  the  crisis  ex 
isted  could  not  be  doubted  by  any  one  who 
saw  the  letters  and  telegrams  which  came  to 

241 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


the  White  House  from  the  Governor  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  the  Mayor  of  New  York,  the  Mayor 
of  Chicago,  the  Mayor  of  Detroit,  the  New 
York  Board  of  Trade,  the  managers  of  mills 
and  factories,  and  others.  The  remedies  sug 
gested  were  various.  Not  a  few  eminent  men 
of  usually  sound  and  conservative  judgment 
had  been  carried  away  by  the  idea  of  seizing 
the  mines  under  the  Government's  right  of 
eminent  domain.  Indeed,  if  the  whole  story 
were  written,  ex-Senator  Hill's  socialistic  plank 
in  the  New  York  Democratic  platform  of  1902 
would  be  found  to  have  been  no  isolated  freak 
of  sentiment. 

One  man  of  means  and  influence  wrote: 
"The  coal  strike  must  end  at  once.  If  the 
operators  persist  in  refusing  to  arbitrate,  they 
will  strengthen  the  socialists  in  their  efforts 
to  secure  Government  control."  Another  tele 
graphed:  "If  the  disputants  will  not  themselves 
find  some  way  of  supplying,  without  delay, 
what  is  really  a  necessary  of  life,  some  way  will 
have  to  be  found  to  make  them!"  A  prom 
inent  citizen  of  New  York,  whose  name  is 
known  all  over  the  world,  said,  in  the  course 
of  a  long  written  review  of  the  situation: 
"Within  a  month  coal  will  be  as  much  of  a 

242 


NO   DEMAGOGUE 


necessity  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  States 
north  of  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line  as  food  or 
milk  or  water,  and  the  persons  who  stand  in 
the  way  of  its  supply  at  reasonable  rates  will 
be  the  enemies  of  all  the  people,  with  a  crimi 
nality  nothing  short  of  murder." 

A  demagogue  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  place 
would  have  listened  to  only  one  side  of  the 
quarrel  between  the  operators  and  the  miners; 
if  he  had  interfered  at  all,  it  would  have  been 
by  convening  Congress  in  extraordinary  session 
in  the  midst  of  a  political  campaign.  In  these 
circumstances,  clear  thinking  and  unbiased 
action  would  have  been  well-nigh  impossible, 
for  every  member  of  either  house  would  have 
come  to  Washington  charged  with  admoni 
tions  from  the  labor  organizations  at  his  home 
to  stand  by  the  coal-field  workers  in  their 
struggle.  A  man  who  was  not  actually  a  dema 
gogue,  but  merely  timid,  would  have  waited 
till  Congress  assembled  and  shifted  to  its  shoul 
ders  the  responsibility  of  dealing  with  the 
strike;  but  Congress  would  not  assemble  till 
December,  and  by  that  time  the  whole  North 
ern  country  would  have  made  its  plunge  into 
a  winter  without  fuel. 

The  step  taken  by  the  President  in  this 
243 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


crisis  was  a  bold  one.  He  had  no  more  prece 
dent  for  it  than  he  had  the  next  year  for  his 
Panama  policy.  It  is  an  open  secret  that  most 
of  the  lawyers  and  public  men  with  whom  he 
counseled  advised  him  that  his  authority  to 
organize  a  board  of  arbitration  was  at  least 
doubtful,  if  indeed  it  had  any  foundation  what 
ever.  What  assurance  had  he  that  Congress 
would  sanction  his  action,  and  vote  the  money 
for  the  expenses  of  the  arbitration?  How  could 
he  so  choose  the  membership  of  the  board  as 
to  satisfy  both  sides,  so  that  neither  would  re 
fuse  to  submit  its  case?  Finally,  when  the 
arbitrators  had  finished  their  work,  how  could 
he  make  certain  that  all  parties  would  carry 
out  their  obligations  under  the  aw&rd  in  good 
faith? 

Instead  of  convening  Congress,  he  called 
together  the  leaders  of  both  the  warring  ele 
ments.  He  reasoned,  and  soundly,  that  what 
ever  all  these  men  agreed  to,  Congress  could 
not  refuse  to  ratify  on  any  specious  ground  of 
partizanship,  and  he  would  have  the  sanction 
of  the  law  after  the  fact  if  not  in  advance  of  it. 
The  membership  of  the  board  should  be  de 
scribed,  even  if  not  personally  named,  by  the 
same  gathering.  And  before  the  first  decisive 

244 


"SOCIOLOGIST"   DEFINED 

move  were  made  in  any  direction,  he  would 
pledge  all  the  parties  in  interest  to  an  honest  ful 
filment  of  the  decree  of  the  arbitrators,  whether 
for  or  against  themselves.  This  plan  he  carried 
out  to  the  letter.  Of  course,  he  did  not  escape 
criticism.  A  part  of  the  press  which  was  al 
ready  committed  against  any  concession  to  the 
miners,  right  or  wrong,  charged  him  with  the 
usurpation  of  extra-constitutional  powers;  oth 
ers  attacked,  some  humorously  and  some  seri 
ously,  the  personnel  of  the  arbitration  com 
mission.  For  example,  the  representatives  of 
the  operators  and  of  the  miners  had  jointly 
decided  that  the  commission  should  comprise 
an  army  or  navy  engineer,  a  mining  engineer, 
a  judge  of  a  United  States  court,  a  sociologist, 
and  a  man  who  had  been  actively  engaged  in 
mining  and  selling  coal  and  was  familiar  with 
the  business.  The  rest  of  this  descriptive  list 
was  easy  enough  to  select,  but  the  sociologist 
presented  a  puzzle.  Who  would  come  under 
that  head?  The  Century  Dictionary  defined 
a  sociologist  as  "one  who  treats  of  or  devotes 
himself  to  the  study  of  sociology,"  and  soci 
ology  as  "the  science  which  investigates  the 
laws  regulating  human  society"  and  treats  of 
"the  progress  of  civilization." 

245 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


It  seemed,  for  various  reasons,  undesirable 
to  load  down  so  practical  a  commission  with 
a  mere  theorist  or  doctrinaire,  and  the  profes 
sional  sociologists  who  actually  mixed  with 
men  and  studied  their  subject  at  first  hand  were 
few  and  far  between.  So  the  President  adopted 
a  definition  of  his  own,  and  laid  his  hand  at 
once  upon  the  man  whom  he  believed  it  best 
fitted.  This  was  E.  E.  Clark,  a  railway  conduc 
tor.  If  any  person  in  any  occupation  had  had 
an  opportunity  to  study  humankind  in  groups, 
and  under  nearly  all  conditions  calculated  to 
bring  out  their  peculiarities,  it  was  one  in  Mr. 
Clark's  calling.  Apart  from  this  considera 
tion,  moreover,  Mr.  Clark  bore  the  name  of  a 
fair-minded  man.  Above  all,  he  was  an  officer 
of  one  of  the  leading  trade-unions  in  the  coun 
try,  with  a  membership  of  exceptional  charac 
ter  and  intelligence,  the  Brotherhood  of  Rail 
way  Conductors.  This  was  the  shrewd  feature 
of  the  whole  affair:  whatever  report  Mr.  Clark 
concurred  in  was  bound  to  be  conservative  of 
the  rights  of  the  unions,  and  hence  acceptable 
to  organized  labor  everywhere. 

So,  while  newspaper  writers  and  stump  ora 
tors  were  poking  fun  at  the  President  for  his 
peculiar  application  of  the  term  "sociologist," 

246 


ANOTHER   ILLUSTRATION 

he  laughed  with  them  outwardly,  but  at  them 
in  secret;  for  he  knew  what  he  was  about,  and 
they  did  not.  Subsequent  events,  as  we  have 
seen,  have  vindicated  his  wisdom.  The  report 
of  the  commission,  which  was  not  signed  and 
delivered  till  it  had  been  put  into  a  shape  where 
every  member  could  unite  in  it,  not  only  settled 
this  particular  strike,  but  fixed  a  point  of  de 
parture  for  the  treatment  of  any  labor  questions 
with  which  the  Government  might  be  called 
upon  to  deal  thereafter. 

It  was  hardly  the  act  of  a  demagogue — 
that  visit  of  Police  Commissioner  Roosevelt  to 
Clarendon  Hall  in  New  York  during  a  par 
ticularly  trying  strike  period  to  meet  a  body 
of  representative  workingmen.  The  police  had 
been  in  more  or  less  trouble  with  the  restless 
element  daily,  and  blood  had  flowed  some 
times  when  officers  had  interfered  with  the  ef 
forts  of  strikers  to  "persuade"  their  scab  sub 
stitutes  to  drop  work.  The  commissioner  had 
got  tired  of  waiting  for  the  difficulty  to  com 
pose  itself.  He  fancied  that  if  all  the  facts 
were  brought  out  by  a  good-tempered  inquiry 
it  might  be  possible  for  the  city  government 
to  do  something  toward  restoring  quiet.  So  he 
arranged  to  have  a  talk  with  the  strikers  face 

247 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


to  face.  When  he  came  to  the  hall  he  found 
— as  one  might  have  guessed — a  group  of  men 
determined  to  get  all  they  could  and  yield  noth 
ing.  They  had  quite  misinterpreted  his  friendly 
advance.  Why  should  he,  a  politician,  come 
among  them  at  this  juncture  except  to  cajole 
them  for  votes?  And  if  he  was  to  have  the 
votes,  he  should  pay  a  handsome  price  for 
them.  So  they  dragged  out  their  grievances 
and  paraded  them  before  him,  and  when  they 
saw  that  he  was  listening  intently  they  played 
their  second  card — threats. 

A  change  passed  over  his  face  and  manner. 
The  appearance  of  sympathetic  interest  gave 
way,  first  to  one  of  astonished  curiosity,  as  if 
he  were  not  sure  that  he  had  heard  aright,  and 
then  to  a  settled  expression  of  sternness.  "Wait 
a  moment!"  he  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of  com 
mand  that  brought  the  proceedings  to  a  sudden 
standstill.  "We  came  together  to  try  to  under 
stand  each  other  better.  I  wanted  to  learn 
from  your  own  lips  what  there  really  was  be 
hind  your  trouble  with  your  employers.  I  be 
gin  to  think  that  some  of  you  have  mistaken 
the  purpose  of  my  invitation.  Remember  this, 
please,  before  we  go  one  step  further:  the  man 
among  you  who  advises  or  encourages  violence 

248 


OBEDIENCE   TO   ORDERS 


is  the  enemy  of  all.  We  shall  have  order  in 
this  place  and  peace  in  this  city  before  we  have 
anything  else;  and  the  police  will  preserve  it. 
Now,  if  the  air  is  clearer,  we  can  go  on." 

The  men  who  had  been  talking  brute  force 
came  down  once  more  to  reason.  They  were 
cowed;  and  their  companions,  instead  of  be 
ing  angry,  cheered  loudly  the  politician  who 
wouldn't  be  bullied. 

Nor  did  it  indicate  a  servile  spirit  when 
Commissioner  Roosevelt  made  a  speech  of  com 
mendation  and  congratulation  to  a  roundsman 
whom  he  promoted  for  a  specially  good  piece 
of  work  during  the  same  season.  There  was 
much  rioting  in  this  officer's  district.  He  was 
told  to  take  six  men  and  keep  a  certain  line  of 
street-railroad  open.  The  mob  had  reached  a 
point  where  it  was  sullen  and  dangerous;  the 
roundsman  therefore  promptly  took  decisive 
measures — charged  it,  clubbing  right  and  left, 
and,  without  giving  it  a  moment's  chance  to 
rally,  drove  it  in  headlong  flight,  and  kept  the 
whole  railroad  line  clear.  He  had  won  his 
promotion  to  a  sergeancy  by  a  deed  which  was 
military  in  its  efficiency,  and  Mr.  Roosevelt 
recognized  the  fact  without  a  moment's  hesi 
tancy. 

249 


CHAPTER   XV 

TRUSTS,    TARIFF    AND    IMPERIALISM 

Why  one  corporation  is  sued  and  another  not — Prudential  value 
of  publicity — Free-trader  versus  Republican — A  Philippine 
forecast  sustained — Tropical  colonies  and  the  flag. 

ABOUT  the  middle  of  February,  1902,  Presi 
dent  Roosevelt  authorized  the  prosecution  of 
the  Northern  Securities  Company  for  violation 
of  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law,  because  he  was 
advised  by  Attorney-General  Knox  that  there 
was  a  fair  reason  for  believing  that  the  courts 
would  sustain  this  action.  The  United  States 
Steel  Corporation  had  been  marked  by  the  pub 
lic  as  a  probable  target  for  this  sort  of  attack; 
but  it  was  not  prosecuted,  because  the  President 
was  advised  by  the  Attorney-General  that  a 
prosecution  would  probably  not  be  sustained 
by  the  courts. 

Therein  lies  the  whole  story  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  attitude  toward  the  great  trade  and  com 
mercial  combinations.  The  many  explana 
tions  offered  by  contemporary  writers  might 

250 


ABSURD   EXPLANATION 


be  boiled  down  into  two :  ( i )  That  he  was  try 
ing  to  get  even  with  sundry  eminent  capitalists 
who  had  criticized  him;  (2)  that  an  attack  on 
a  Western  combination  would  make  votes  for 
him  among  the  farmers,  while  by  lenity  toward 
an  Eastern  combination  he  would  keep  on  terms 
with  certain  New  York  capitalists  whose  friend 
ship  he  needed. 

The  idea  that  the  President  had  figured  out 
an  intricate  anti-trust  scheme  so  as  to  use  a 
Federal  law  as  a  club  for  his  personal  revenges 
and  a  staff  for  his  political  advancement  was 
plainly  absurd.  In  truth,  his  mind  so  works 
along  straight  lines  and  on  known  angles  that 
his  conclusions  are  easier  to  forecast  than  those 
of  perhaps  any  other  man  in  public  life  to 
day.  In  his  Minneapolis  speech  of  Septem 
ber  2,  1901,  he  said:  uThe  vast  individual  and 
corporate  fortunes,  the  vast  combinations  of 
capital,  which  have  marked  the  development 
of  our  industrial  system,  create  new  condi 
tions  and  necessitate  a  change  from  the  old 
attitude  of  the  State  and  the  nation  toward 
property.  It  is  probably  true  that  the  large 
majority  of  the  fortunes  that  now  exist  in  this 
country  have  been  amassed,  not  by  injuring 
our  people,  but  as  an  incident  to  the  conferring 

251 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


of  great  benefit  upon  the  community.  There 
is  but  the  scantiest  justification  for  most  of  the 
outcry  against  the  men  of  wealth  as  such;  and 
it  ought  to  be  unnecessary  to  state  that  any 
appeal  which  directly  or  indirectly  leads  to 
suspicion  and  hatred  among  ourselves  ...  is 
an  attack  upon  the  fundamental  properties  of 
American  citizenship.  Our  interests  are  at  bot 
tom  common;  in  the  long  run  we  go  up  or  go 
down  together.  Yet  more  and  more  is  it  evi 
dent  that  the  State,  and  if  necessary  the  nation, 
has  got  to  possess  the  right  of  supervision  and 
control  as  regards  the  great  corporations,  which 
are  its  creatures;  particularly  as  regards  the 
great  business  combinations  which  derive  a  por 
tion  of  their  importance  from  the  existence 
of  some  monopolistic  tendencies.  The  right 
should  be  exercised  with  caution  and  self- 
restraint,  but  it  should  exist  so  that  it  may  be 
invoked  if  the  need  arise." 

This  was  before  he  had  any  thought  that 
he  should  be,  for  at  least  three  or  four  years, 
in  a  position  to  recommend  legislation  or  direct 
its  enforcement.  His  first  message  to  Congress 
after  he  became  President  contained  phrases 
which  practically  echoed  his  Minneapolis 
speech.  There  was  nothing  in  either  utterance 

252 


lopyrlght,  1903,  l.y  Underwood  A-  Underwood. 

SPEAKING  TO  THE  PEOPLE  FROM  A  CAR  PLATFORM. 


PUBLICITY   DEMANDED 


to  alarm  investors  in  industrial  corporations, 
provided  these  concerns  were  keeping  within 
the  law.  If  they  were  not,  then  they  were  fairly 
warned  to  readjust  their  business  so  as  to  bring 
it  within  the  law,  or  find  no  fault  if  the  ma 
chinery  of  justice  should  overtake  their  enter 
prises. 

It  has,  moreover,  always  been  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  belief  that  existing  laws  left  untouched 
one  evil  which  underlay  all  others — the  secrecy 
with  which  the  business  of  great  combinations 
is  conducted.  The  people,  who  have  granted 
extraordinary  privileges  to  certain  concerns  en 
gaged  in  trade,  have  a  right,  he  thinks,  to  know 
how  those  privileges  are  exercised.  The  Gov 
ernment,  charged  by  the  people  with  the  duty 
of  regulating  such  concerns,  has  a  right  to  know 
whether  they  are  transgressing  the  laws  enacted 
for  their  regulation.  Or,  as  he  has  put  it  him 
self:  "Publicity  can  do  no  harm  to  the  honest 
corporation,  and  we  need  not  be  overtender 
about  sparing  the  dishonest  corporation." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  appeal  to  Congress  for 
means  with  which  to  deal  with  the  trusts  was 
answered  because  it  had  public  sentiment  be 
hind  it.  The  three  measures  enacted  were  not 
very  drastic  in  effect,  and  perhaps  only  tenta- 

253 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tive  in  purpose,  but  they  furnished  at  least  a 
basis  for  further  action.  A  well-recognized 
source  of  trust  aggrandizement  has  always  been 
the  favoritism  shown  to  the  great  manufactur 
ing  combinations  by  the  railroad  companies 
that  transport  their  material  and  products;  so 
one  of  the  new  enactments  was  an  amendment 
to  the  existing  interstate  commerce  law  against 
rebates,  whereby  the  receiver  as  well  as  the 
giver  of  a  rebate  is  to  be  punished.  Another 
provided  for  the  special  expedition  of  the  anti 
trust  suits  instituted  by  the  Attorney-General 
in  the  courts;  the  third  created  the  Department 
of  Commerce,  with  authority,  through  its  bu 
reau  of  corporations,  to  procure  for  the  Presi 
dent  the  information  he  desired  about  the  busi 
ness  affairs  of  corporate  combinations,  leaving 
to  his  discretion  the  amount  of  this  information 
he  shall  give  to  the  public. 

The  whole  trust  policy  of  the  President  in 
a  nutshell  is:  Enforce  such  laws  as  we  have 
now  because  they  are  laws,  and  lay  the  founda 
tion  for  the  just  enforcement  of  these,  and  for 
their  modification  or  improvement  wherever 
necessary,  by  requiring  the  great  industrial 
combinations  to  tell  us  just  what  they  are  do 
ing.  It  is  a  simple  code.  The  humblest  mind 

254 


UNWRITTEN   HISTORY 


can  grasp  it,  and  no  hidden  meaning  or  motive 
lurks  behind  its  plain  expression. 

I  can  not  leave  this  subject  of  trusts  and  the 
President's  attitude  toward  them  without  tell 
ing  a  bit  of  inside  history  which  I  believe 
has  never  before  seen  print.  In  the  winter  of 
1901-02  Andrew  Carnegie  carried  into  execu 
tion  a  long-cherished  scheme  for  establishing 
an  educational  foundation  which,  without  be 
ing  itself  a  national  university,  should  supple 
ment,  under  the  auspices  of  the  National  Gov 
ernment,  the  work  of  all  universities  by  afford 
ing  means  for  the  development  of  certain  lines 
of  scholarly  research  far  past  the  point  to  which 
any  existing  resources  could  carry  them.  The 
idea  appealed  to  the  President  strongly  when 
Mr.  Carnegie  laid  it  before  him.  It  was  the 
benefactor's  purpose  to  present  his  fund  of 
$10,000,000,  invested  in  first-lien  bonds  of  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation,  directly  to  the 
Government,  the  proceeds  to  be  administered 
by  the  President,  certain  members  of  the  Cabi 
net,  and  a  board  of  directors  comprising  sev 
eral  men  of  eminence  in  scientific  and  educa 
tional  fields. 

With  his  usual  enthusiasm  for  any  project 
that  combines  patriotism  and  generosity,  Mr. 

18  255 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Roosevelt  gave  his  hearty  approval  to  this  plan, 
and  it  was  on  the  very  eve  of  going  through  as 
originally  designed,  when  a  certain  long-headed 
lawyer  and  warm  friend  of  the  President  was 
brought  into  consultation  and  at  once  called  a 
halt. 

"Do  you  realize  what  you  are  doing,  Mr. 
President?"  he  demanded.  "If  you  accept  this 
endowment  for  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  you  make  the  Government,  and  inci 
dentally  your  Administration,  an  underwriter 
of  the  premier  securities  of  the  Steel  Trust  I" 

The  President  saw  the  point,  which  till  then 
had  escaped  his  notice,  obscured  by  his  admira 
tion  of  the  magnificence  of  the  gift  and  the 
public  benefit  to  be  derived  from  it.  Mr.  Car 
negie  was  sent  for,  and  a  readjustment  agreed 
upon,  whereby  the  trusteeship  of  the  fund  was 
vested  in  an  independent  board.  All  that  the 
people  at  large  knew  at  the  time  was  that  a 
hitch  had  occurred  in  the  arrangements  pro 
viding  for  the  administration  of  the  Carnegie 
fund.  In  some  quarters  it  was  given  out  by 
the  wiseacres  that  the  Attorney- General  had 
rendered  an  opinion  that  the  United  States 
could  not  lawfully  accept  such  a  gift.  That  is 
absurd.  Gifts  to  the  United  States  are  not  so 

256 


IN   A  FREE-TRADE   CLUB 

very  uncommon,  and  an  act  of  Congress  settles 
all  details.  But  the  awkwardness  of  the  posi 
tion  in  which  the  President  would  have  found 
himself  if  he  had  sent  a  message  to  Congress 
recommending  the  acceptance  of  this  particu 
lar  gift,  and  the  difficulty  of  explaining  to  his 
critics  that  there  was  no  connection  between  his 
attitude  on  this  subject  and  Mr.  Knox's  dis 
crimination  between  combinations  in  the  en 
forcement  of  the  anti-trust  law,  will  be  appre 
ciated  by  the  reader  without  comment. 

In  or  about  the  year  1881,  with  the  economic 
doctrines  emphasized  by  his  university  still 
fresh  in  his  mind,  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  a 
member  of  the  Free-Trade  Club  in  New  York. 
He  found  there  congenial  associations,  the  club 
consisting  largely  of  educated  young  men  like 
himself,  full  of  public  spirit  and  ambitious  for 
a  share  in  the  world's  activities.  He  remained 
a  member  through  his  entire  legislative  career. 
He  was  still  a  member  when  he  headed  his 
State  delegation  to  the  national  convention  that 
nominated  Blaine  for  President;  for,  although 
nominally  a  Republican,  he  owed  the  support 
of  his  peculiar  constituency  not  so  much  to  any 
party  connection  as  to  his  subordination  of  all 

257 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


partizan  considerations  to  the  single  standard 
of  respectability  in  public  life. 

But  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  decide 
whether  to  remain  the  first  independent  in  the 
United  States  and  do  what  he  could  in  that 
character,  or  to  exchange  a  part  of  his  inde 
pendence  for  an  affiliation  which  would  ulti 
mately  open  to  him  a  larger  field,  he  took  a 
candid  inventory  of  assets.  If  he  became  a 
straight-out  party  man,  his  free-trade  interests 
would  have  to  go  the  way  of  his  mugwump 
friendships  and  his  freedom  to  oppose  on  the 
stump  any  candidate  whom  he  distrusted.  To 
his  mind,  this  phase  of  the  question  was  eco 
nomic  rather  than  moral.  It  involved  no  choice 
between  right  and  wrong,  but  only  between  two 
paths  leading  to  the  same  ultimate  goal — an 
unfettered  commerce:  the  protective  policy 
meant  going  around  by  a  longer  road  and  living 
by  the  way;  the  free-trade  policy  meant  a  short 
cut,  with  the  rewards  and  the  subsistence  all 
at  the  end  of  the  journey. 

His  choice  made,  Mr.  Roosevelt  sent  in  his 
resignation  as  a  member  of  the  club.  This  was 
in  1885.  His  message  contained  neither  an 
apology  for  the  step  he  was  taking,  nor  any 
trumped-up  excuses  for  his  original  member- 


TARIFF   REFORMER 


ship.  It  was  a  simple,  straightforward  state 
ment  that  he  was  "a  Republican  first,  a  free 
trader  afterward."  In  this  matter,  as  in  the 
larger  conflicts  between  the  enthusiasms  of  his 
youth  and  the  teachings  of  practical  experi 
ence,  he  has  come,  with  the  passage  of  years, 
to  take  a  more  sympathetic  view  of  his  party's 
attitude. 

He  still  remains,  however,  a  tariff  reformer 
within  Republican  lines.  Protection  as  a  pol 
icy  commands  his  support;  but  it  never  has 
held,  and  never  can  hold,  the  place  of  a  fetish 
with  him.  It  must  always  be  a  means  to  an 
end,  not  an  end  in  itself.  I  do  not  believe  he 
would  condemn  as  a  heresy  the  honest  belief  of 
a  Republican  that  the  party  would  be  better 
without  the  protection  clause  in  its  creed.  I 
do  not  think  he  would  resent  a  Republican  pro 
posal  to  supplant  a  prohibitory  tariff  with  a 
tariff  for  revenue  in  which  the  protective  ele 
ment  shall  be  incidental  only.  But  that  does 
not  mean  that  he  would  assent  to  its  wisdom, 
considering  always  time  and  occasion.  As  he 
has  sunk  his  own  preferences  in  so  many  re 
spects  for  the  sake  of  keeping  at  one  with  his 
party,  he  regards  it  as  only  fair  that  others 
should  be  willing  to  do  the  same.  "We  all  go 

259 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


up  or  all  go  down  together"  is  a  favorite  polit 
ical  maxim  of  his,  meaning  that  the  first  thought 
of  each  member  of  the  party  should  be  for  the 
party  as  a  whole  and  not  for  any  individual 
interests. 

No  measure  of  thoroughgoing  tariff  re 
vision,  for  the  sake  of  reducing  the  burdens  of 
the  people  directly,  has  come  before  Mr.  Roose 
velt  as  President  to  put  the  fundaments  of  his 
economic  faith  to  the  test.  The  only  forms  in 
which  the  question  has  arisen  have  been  projects 
for  reciprocity  arrangements  to  enlarge  our 
commerce,  which  he  has  commended  for  general 
business  reasons;  a  special  reciprocity  treaty 
with  Cuba,  which  he  urged  as  well  because  our 
national  honor  demands  it;  and  proposals  to  use 
tariff  reduction  as  a  weapon  against  the  trusts. 
On  this  last  head,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Cin 
cinnati  in  September,  1902,  he  said: 

"A  remedy  much  advocated  at  the  moment 
is  to  take  off  the  tariff  from  all  articles  which 
are  made  by  trusts.  To  do  this  it  will  be  neces 
sary  first  to  define  trusts.  The  language  com 
monly  used  by  the  advocates  of  this  method  im 
plies  that  they  mean  all  articles  made  by  large 
corporations,  and  that  the  changes  in  tariff  are 
to  be  made  with  punitive  intent  toward  these 

260 


TARIFF   AND   TRUSTS 


large  corporations.  Of  course,  if  the  tariff  is 
to  be  changed  in  order  to  punish  them,  it  should 
be  changed  so  as  to  punish  those  that  do  ill,  not 
merely  those  that  are  prosperous.  If  in  any 
case  the  tariff  is  found  to  foster  a  monopoly 
which  does  ill,  why,  of  course,  no  protectionist 
would  object  to  a  modification  of  the  tariff 
sufficient  to  remedy  the  evil.  But  in  very  few 
cases  does  the  so-called  trust  really  monopolize 
the  market.  Take  any  very  big  corporation 
which  controls,  say,  something  over  half  the 
products  of  a  given  industry.  Surely,  in  re 
arranging  the  schedules  affecting  such  a  big 
corporation,  it  would  be  necessary  to  consider 
the  interests  of  its  smaller  competitors  which 
control  the  remaining  part." 

In  his  annual  message  to  Congress  later  in 
the  same  year  he  said :  "The  only  relation  of  the 
tariff  to  big  corporations  as  a  whole  is  that 
the  tariff  makes  manufactures  profitable,  and 
the  tariff  remedy  proposed  would  be  in  effect 
simply  to  make  manufactures  unprofitable.  .  .  . 
Our  aim  should  be  not  by  unwise  tariff  changes 
to  give  foreign  products  the  advantage  over 
domestic  products,  but  by  proper  regulation  to 
give  domestic  competition  a  fair  chance. 

"Stability  of  economic  policy  must  always 
261 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


be  the  prime  economic  need  of  this  country. 
This  stability  should  not  be  fossilization.  The 
country  has  acquiesced  in  the  wisdom  of  the 
protective- tariff  principle.  It  is  exceedingly 
undesirable  that  this  system  should  be  destroyed, 
or  that  there  should  be  violent  and  radical 
changes  therein.  ...  It  is  better  to  endure  for 
a  time  slight  inconveniences  and  inequalities  in 
some  schedules.  ...  It  is,  perhaps,  too  much 
to  hope  that  partizanship  may  be  entirely  ex 
cluded  from  consideration  of  the  subject,  but  at 
least  it  can  be  made  secondary  to  the  business 
interests  of  the  country — that  is,  to  the  interests 
of  our  people  as  a  whole.  Unquestionably 
these  business  interests  will  best  be  served  if 
together  with  fixity  of  principle  as  regards  the 
tariff  we  combine  a  system  which  will  permit 
us  from  time  to  time  to  make  the  necessary  re- 
application  of  the  principle  to  the  shifting  na 
tional  needs.  .  .  .  There  must  never  be  any 
change  which  will  jeopardize  the  standard  of 
comfort,  the  standard  of  wages,  of  the  Ameri 
can  wage-worker." 

From  these  passages  may  be  drawn  the  gist 
of  the  entire  matter.  Mr.  Roosevelt  carefully 
steers  clear  of  any  worship  of  our  protective 
tariff  as  heaven-born,  like  most  Republican  ora- 

262 


FUTURE  OF  PHILIPPINES 

tors,  but  treats  it  merely  as  an  artificial  device 
adopted  for  a  purpose.  Does  it  seem  unreason 
able  to  assume  that  when  the  disturbance  of  the 
elections  of  1904  has  subsided  we  shall  see  him 
heading  a  movement  for  tariff  revision  on  the 
lines  he  has  marked  out  above?  Is  he  not 
committed  to  a  non-political,  conservative,  and 
well-considered  undertaking,  in  which  no  spe 
cial  interests  shall  be  favored  at  the  expense  of 
the  rest,  and  none  persecuted  because  they  wear 
an  obnoxious  title,  but  in  which  the  whole  sys 
tem  shall  be  treated  as  if  the  schedules  were 
made  for  the  people,  not  the  people  for  the 
schedules? 

No  one  was  ever  authorized  to  expound  to 
the  public  Mr.  Roosevelt's  views  on  the  final 
disposition  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  beyond  the 
point  to  which  he  had  carried  such  an  exposi 
tion  himself.  It  would  therefore  be  presump 
tuous,  in  a  volume  like  this,  to  do  more  than 
set  forth  the  author's  individual  impressions, 
together  with  certain  data  from  which  each 
reader  may  draw  his  own  inferences.  I  drew 
mine  in  a  forecast  of  the  President's  general 
policies  published  a  few  days  after  his  installa 
tion  at  the  White  House,  and  I  can  not  better 

263 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


introduce  the  little  I  have  now  to  say  on  the 
subject  than  by  citing  a  brief  extract  from  that 
article : 


The  Philippine  problem  can  not  be  solved 
for  Mr.  Roosevelt  by  any  one  else,  nor  would 
it  be  safe  to  say  that  he  expects  by  the  end  of 
his  three  or  four  years  in  office  to  bring  this  to 
a  definite  and  final  solution.  A  better  state 
ment  of  his  views  would  doubtless  be  that  in 
the  course  of  four  years  the  Filipinos  can  be 
carried  a  long  distance  forward  on  their  way 
toward  self-government. 

It  is  inconceivable  that  a  man  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  moral  type  would  favor  the  retention  of 
colonies  merely  for  the  sake  of  retaining  them, 
if  majorities  both  of  the  colonists  and  of  the 
citizens  of  the  parent  country  frankly  desired 
a  separation;  it  is  equally  out  of  the  question 
for  any  one  who  knows  the  workings  of  his 
mind  to  suppose  him  in  favor  of  turning  such 
a  people  as  the  Filipinos  loose  upon  the  sister 
hood  of  nations  till  they  have  been  instructed 
in  the  ways  of  self-governing  commonwealths. 
He  would  tell  you  that  he  is  never  an  oppressor, 
always  a  civilizer;  but  he  would  hardly  judge 
a  people  capable  of  passing  upon  the  question 
of  their  permanent  future  form  of  government 
till  they  had  tested  what  he  regards  as  the  ideal 
form. 

264 


OUR   COLONIAL   PROBLEM 

Reviewing  this  prophetic  essay  in  the  light 
of  all  that  is  known  now,  I  do  not  care  to  change 
a  single  sentence. 

The  Philippine  problem,  however  easy  of 
solution  it  may  have  seemed  at  first  to  the  advo 
cates  of  our  immediate  relinquishment  of  the 
islands,  bids  fair  not  to  be  solved  for  several 
years  to  come.  It  certainly  will  not  during  the 
present  administration  of  President  Roosevelt, 
or  the  next  either — if  he  have  another.  There 
is  little  reason  to  suppose  that  it  can  be  solved 
during  his  lifetime.  This  will  account  for  the 
fact  that  we  have  not  on  record  anywhere  an 
utterance  of  his  which  deserves  to  be  called  a 
plan  of  settlement  for  this  most  complex  of  our 
national  responsibilities. 

But  of  colonies  peopled  with  an  alien  race, 
in  a  latitude  where  the  pure  Caucasian  can  not 
thrive,  and  on  a  side  of  the  globe  where  they 
must  be  always  separately  defended  by  the 
mother  country  and  can  never  help  defend  her 
in  return,  he  expressed  his  opinion  with  great 
candor  about  two  years  before  the  battle  of 
Manila  harbor.  "At  best,"  said  he,  "the  in 
habitants  of  a  colony  are  in  a  cramped  and 
unnatural  state.  At.  the  worst,  the  establish 
ment  of  a  colony  prevents  any  healthy  popular 

265 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


growth.  ...  At  present  the  only  hope  for  a 
colony  that  wishes  to  attain  full  moral  and 
mental  growth  is  to  become  an  independent 
state  or  part  of  an  independent  state.  .  .  . 
If  the  colony  is  in  a  region  where  the  col 
onizing  race  has  to  do  its  work  by  means 
of  other  inferior  races  the  condition  is  much 
worse.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  race,  little 
or  nothing  has  been  gained  by  the  English  con 
quest  and  colonization  in  Jamaica.  Jamaica 
has  merely  been  turned  into  a  negro  island,  with 
a  future  seemingly  much  like  that  of  San  Do 
mingo.  British  Guiana,  however  well  admin 
istered,  is  nothing  but  a  colony  where  a  few 
hundred  or  few  thousand  white  men  hold  the 
superior  positions,  while  the  bulk  of  the  popu 
lation  is  composed  of  Indians,  negroes  and 
Asiatics." 

Be  it  noted  that  he  had  chosen  for  his  illus 
tration  the  extreme  case  of  the  best  mother  of 
colonies  the  world  ever  saw,  a  country  which 
has  stood  in  the  forefront  of  human  civilization 
longer  than  any  we  now  know.  Obviously,  if 
even  she  had  never  been  able  to  rear  distant 
colonies  to  the  normal  stature  of  her  own 
people,  no  other  nation — particularly  one  un 
trained  to  the  business,  and  with  a  form  of  gov- 

266 


FORBEARANCE   AND   RESOLUTION 

ernment  which  does  not  lend  itself  readily  to 
such  a  change — seemed  likely  to  succeed.  Does 
not  this  view  tally  pretty  well  with  his  declara 
tion  in  his  Minneapolis  speech  of  September 
2,  1901 :  "We  are  not  trying  to  subjugate  a  peo 
ple — we  are  trying  to  develop  them  and  make 
them  a  law-abiding,  industrious  and  educated 
people,  and,  we  hope,  ultimately  a  self-govern 
ing  people"? 

And  we  hear  an  echo  of  the  same  sentiment 
in  his  first  message  to  Congress,  three  months 
later:  "In  dealing  with  the  Philippine  people 
we  must  show  both  patience  and  strength,  for 
bearance  and  steadfast  resolution.  Our  aim 
is  high.  We  do  not  desire  to  do  for  the  island 
ers  merely  what  has  elsewhere  been  done  for 
tropic  peoples  by  even  the  best  foreign  govern 
ments.  We  hope  to  do  for  them  what  has  never 
before  been  done  for  any  people  of  the  tropics 
— to  make  them  fit  for  self-government  after 
the  fashion  of  the  really  free  nations." 

Keeping  these  arguments  in  mind,  let  us 
pass  to  his  next  message,  where  we  find  him 
saying:  "On  July  4th  last,  the  one  hundred  and 
twenty-sixth  anniversary  of  the  Declaration, 
peace  and  amnesty  were  promulgated  in  the 
Philippine  Islands.  .  .  .  Civil  government  has 

267 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


now  been  introduced.  Not  only  does  each 
Filipino  enjoy  such  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  as  he  has  never  before 
known  during  the  recorded  history  of  the 
islands,  but  the  people,  taken  as  a  whole,  now 
enjoy  a  measure  of  self-government  greater 
than  that  granted  to  any  other  Orientals  by  any 
foreign  power,  and  greater  than  that  enjoyed 
by  any  other  Orientals  under  their  own  gov 
ernments,  save  the  Japanese  alone.  We  have 
not  gone  too  far  in  granting  these  rights  of  lib 
erty  and  self-government;  but  we  have  cer 
tainly  gone  to  the  limit  that  in  the  interest  of 
the  Philippine  people  themselves  it  was  wise 
or  just  to  go.  To  hurry  matters,  to  go  faster 
than  we  are  now  going,  would  entail  calamity 
on  the  people  of  the  islands." 

"But  how,"  cry  his  critics,  "can  the  Presi 
dent's  stated  assurances  that  he  is  working 
toward  the  end  of  complete  self-government 
by  the  people  of  the  Philippines  be  reconciled 
with  his  informal  approval,  from  time  to  time, 
of  references  to  our  permanent  retention  of  the 
islands?"  Personally,  I  have  never  heard  or 
read  a  word  of  his  that  showed  his  expectation 
of  permanent  retention.  His  saying  which  is 
most  widely  quoted  by  the  advocates  of  that 

268 


VICISSITUDES   OF   THE  FLAG 

idea  is  the  conclusion  of  a  speech  to  the  Sons 
of  the  American  Revolution  in  May,  1902, 
when  a  loud  burst  of  applause  had  greeted  his 
tribute  to  the  courage  and  endurance  of  the 
American  soldiers  in  suppressing  the  insurrec 
tion  and  restoring  peace:  "I  thank  you,  fellow 
Americans.  I  think  you  make  it  evident  that 
you  intend  that  the  flag  shall  'stay  put'!" 

Can  this  single  phrase,  called  forth  as  de 
scribed,  be  fairly  cited  as  proof  that  he  favors 
our  occupation  of  the  Philippines  forever?  It 
is  a  favorite  sentimental  declaration  of  a  cer 
tain  class  of  patriots  that  the  American  flag, 
once  hoisted  over  a  piece  of  territory,  can  never 
be  lowered  without  dishonor;  but  Mr.  Roose 
velt  is  aware,  and  has  reminded  such  enthusi 
asts,  that  the  flag  has  been  hoisted  and  lowered 
again  and  again  with  entire  credit  to  itself  and 
the  country,  and  that  it  will  probably  undergo 
this  experience  again  and  again  in  the  future. 
To  have  failed  to  lower  it  in  Cuba  would  have 
put  the  stamp  of  eternal  dishonor  upon  the 
United  States,  and  no  one  was  more  vigorously 
insistent  on  this  point  than  Mr.  Roosevelt  him 
self  when  the  annexationists  were  trying  to  un 
dermine  our  upright  policy  in  quitting  the 
island  after  our  work  there  was  finished. 

269 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


What  the  President  does  try  to  impress  upon 
his  countrymen  is  that  the  flag,  once  planted 
anywhere  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  war 
or  a  peaceful  compact,  shall  never  be  forcibly 
hauled  down  by  an  element  hostile  to  the  prin 
ciples  it  represents.  This  rule  he  would  apply 
equally  against  an  external  enemy  or  a  domestic 
insurgent.  According  to  the  creed  of  the  party 
of  which  he  stands  at  the  head,  the  authority 
of  our  Government  is  righteously  established 
and  now  maintained  in  the  Philippines.  On 
this  theory  it  makes  no  difference,  for  present 
purposes,  whether  we  intend  to  continue  it 
there  till  the  end  of  time,  or  to  relinquish  it  at 
the  first  honorable  opportunity;  the  fact  that  it 
was  there  made  it  incumbent  on  the  Federal 
authorities  to  put  down  everything  which 
savored  of  rebellion  by  the  natives  subject  to 
American  sovereignty,  just  as  they  would 
promptly  crush  out  any  disorder  on  the  part  of 
the  foreign  residents,  no  matter  to  what  power 
these  owed  allegiance  and  looked  for  protection. 

"One  thing  at  a  time"  has  always  been  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  motto,  and  that  one  is  the  thing  that 
lies  next  the  hand.  While  the  reign  of  blood 
shed  continued  in  the  Philippines,  the  next 
thing  was  the  suppression  of  the  insurrection 

270 


THE   "NEXT    THING" 


by  the  sharpest  and  therefore  the  shortest 
campaigning  of  which  the  army  was  capable. 
When  the  insurrection  proper  subsided  and  the 
reign  of  brigandage  set  in,  the  next  thing  was 
the  exertion  of  all  the  strength  of  the  Philippine 
civil  government,  backed  by  the  military  forces 
where  necessary,  to  restore  order.  Wherever 
the  conditions  of  peace  have  been  established 
and  the  operation  of  the  laws  is  no  longer  ob 
structed,  the  next  thing  is  the  education  of  the 
people  in  enlightened  citizenship.  This  prob 
ably  will  be  the  longest  of  the  series  of  evolu 
tionary  processes.  Where  it  will  end,  or  when 
it  will  reach  a  stage  at  which  a  new  question 
can  be  raised  without  confusion — the  question 
of  independence — God  knows. 


19  271 


CHAPTER   XVI 

A  CREATURE  OF  IMPULSE 

Sudden  whim  or  quick  judgment? — How  the  coal  arbitration  was 
set  afoot — The  franchise  tax — A  Jew-baiting  campaign  flat 
tened  out — Vigorous  indorsement  on  a  pardon  petition. 

MANY  persons  who  come  into  only  super 
ficial  contact  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  complain  that 
he  acts  on  impulse  always,  instead  of  consider 
ing  a  proposition.  Their  opinion  may  have  a 
modicum  of  truth  in  it.  My  own  experience 
with  him,  however,  has  led  me  to  believe  that 
his  acts  are  never  responsive  to  a  mere  blind 
whim,  but  are  thought  out  at  lightning  speed. 
Two  facts  must  be  kept  in  view  in  judging  of 
his  rapid  action :  first,  he  does  not  always  carry 
his  consideration  of  a  question  of  conduct  so 
far  as  his  best  friends  wish  he  would,  for,  when 
he  has  decided  what  is  the  course  to  take,  in 
most  cases  he  leaves  the  consequences  entirely 
out  of  account;  second,  he  has  formed  the  habit, 
from  his  early  youth,  of  following  decision  with 
action  without  the  needless  loss  of  a  moment. 
His  motto  is :  "Do  it  now !" 

272 


NO   WASTE   OF   TIME 


While  he  was  in  college  a  horse  in  a  stable 
near  his  lodgings  made  a  loud  noise  one  night 
that  showed  the  poor  beast  to  be  in  trouble- 
probably  cast  in  the  stall  and  choking  to  death. 
The  note  of  alarm  awakened  a  half  dozen  kind- 
hearted  neighbors,  who  hastened  to  the  rescue 
as  soon  as  they  could  draw  on  clothes  enough 
for  decency  and  descend  from  their  sleeping- 
rooms.  They  were  in  time  only  to  lend  a  hand 
at  the  finish.  Young  Roosevelt  had  got  to  the 
spot  already  and  relieved  the  first  necessities 
of  the  horse.  The  promptness  of  his  response 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  come  as  he  was 
— clad  in  nothing  but  a  night-shirt — and  had 
dropped  out  of  a  second-story  window  to  save 
the  time  of  going  down-stairs  and  through  the 
house  to  the  back  door. 

In  the  summer  of  1902,  I  went  to  him  with 
the  suggestion  that,  even  if  he  did  not  feel  justi 
fied  yet  in  interfering  in  the  coal  strike  and  try 
ing  to  ward  off  a  national  calamity,  he  could  at 
least  acquaint  himself  with  the  facts  of  the  situa 
tion  so  as  to  be  ready  to  act  promptly  when  the 
time  came. 

"Who  is  the  man  to  get  me  the  facts?"  he 
demanded,  without  a  moment's  hesitancy. 

"Carroll  D.  Wright,"  I  answered,  having 
273 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


already  prepared  myself  for  the  question,  and 
citing  my  authority  from  the  Revised  Statutes. 

"Find  out  for  me  whether  he  is  in  the  city." 

With  what  I  fondly  fancied  was  speed,  I 
made  my  way  to  Commissioner  Wright's  office. 
His  secretary  told  me  he  was  at  Marblehead 
Neck,  Mass.  "We  answered  a  telephone  in 
quiry  of  the  same  sort  a  few  minutes  ago/'  he 
added.  "The  President  wanted  his  address, 
and  in  haste." 

I  ran  back  to  the  White  House  only  to  find 
that  a  telegram  had  already  gone  to  Mr.  Wright, 
calling  him  to  Washington  for  a  conference. 
Thus  quick  was  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  act  upon  an 
idea  which  appealed  to  him  on  its  first  state 
ment.  Mr.  Wright's  report  set  in  motion  the 
train  of  events  leading  up  to  the  arbitration  of 
the  strike. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  always  seems  to  be  in  a  hurry, 
as  soon  as  his  mind  is  made  up,  to  let  the  world 
know  what  he  is  going  to  do.  But  for  this  very 
reason  I  have  never  agreed  with  the  commenta 
tors  who  describe  him  as  a  man  of  dramatic  sur 
prises.  A  dramatic  surprise,  as  I  understand  the 
term,  is  one  in  which  the  curtain  is  suddenly 
lifted  on  a  completed  fact.  The  theatrical  ele 
ment  is  dissipated  by  long  heralding,  and  Mr. 

274 


PREMATURE  ANNOUNCEMENTS 

Roosevelt  often  sounds  his  warning  a  good 
while  before  he  acts.  His  decision  in  Collector 
Bidwell's  case  became  public  in  October,  though 
the  change  was  not  to  be  made  till  the  following 
spring.  The  announcement  that  Pension-Com 
missioner  Evans  was  to  be  transferred  to  some 
other  office  was  given  out  about  April  i,  1902, 
though  the  new  place  for  him  was  not  found  till 
May,  and  Mr.  Ware  was  not  named  as  his  suc 
cessor  till  still  later.  It  was  as  early  as  July  of 
the  same  year  that  news  came  from  Oyster  Bay 
that  Augustus  T.  Wimberley  was  to  retire  from 
the  Collectorship  of  Customs  at  New  Orleans, 
although  his  current  commission  would  not  ex 
pire  till  December. 

These  are  a  few  notable  instances  chosen 
from  a  multitude.  My  own  explanation  of 
such  premature  announcements  is  that  they  serve 
a  twofold  purpose:  they  stop  empty  guessing 
and  gossip,  and  they  head  off  a  great  many 
importunities  from  professional  office-seekers. 
Once  in  a  while,  too,  they  operate  like  marriage 
bans,  encouraging  all  who  have  anything  to  say 
against  the  proposed  change  to  say  it  and  have 
done.  The  advance  advertisement  of  his  inten 
tions  has  thus,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  saved 
the  President  once  from  giving  an  important 

275 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


office  to  a  chronic  drunkard,  and  once  from  ap 
pointing  a  negro-lyncher  in  the  South. 

Now  and  then  we  hear  stories  of  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  sudden  and  impulsive  change  of  purpose, 
which  on  analysis  lead  back  merely  to  one  of  his 
tricks  of  speech.  In  conversation,  if  he  is  at  all 
interested,  his  mind  keeps  leaping  ahead,  and 
forecasting  the  conclusions  aimed  at  by  his  com 
panion  before  the  latter  has  fairly  finished  the 
major  premise.  This  habit,  by  the  way,  often 
gets  him  into  trouble  when  he  is  talking  with 
men  who  are  not  familiar  with  his  ways.  His 
statement  of  another's  conclusion,  even  with  an 
indication  of  interest  in  it,  does  not  mean  that 
he  accepts  it  himself.  When  he  accompanies  it 
with  an  ejaculation  like,  "Just  so,"  or  "I  see," 
the  comparative  stranger  is  apt  to  confuse  mere 
quick  apprehension  with  cordial  approval. 

This  will  account  for  the  occasional  appear 
ance  in  the  press  of  some  announcement  that  the 
President  purposes  doing  so-and-so,  followed 
promptly  by  a  refutation,  although  the  original 
news  was  evidently  published  in  good  faith  and 
on  reputable  authority.  No  one  is  more  aston 
ished  than  Mr.  Roosevelt  when  one  of  these  false 
reports  gets  into  circulation.  He  has  no  con 
ception  of  his  share  in  its  authorship. 

276 


TRICKS   OF   SPEECH 


Another  of  his  tricks  of  speech  akin  to  this, 
but  a  trick  merely,  is  that  of  echoing  with  assent 
a  remark  made  by  a  companion,  but  inserting 
into  his  own  version  a  qualifying  word  or  phrase 
which,  as  his  speech  is  very  rapid,  only  an 
equally  rapid  sense  is  likely  to  catch.  For  ex 
ample,  "The  plan  I  have  suggested  is  the  only 
one  open  to  us  in  this  exigency,"  remarks  a  visit 
ing  Congressman.  "I  quite  agree  with  you," 
answers  the  President:  "the  plan  you  have  sug 
gested  is  almost  the  only  one  open  to  us  in 
this  exigency."  Then  the  Congressman  hastens 
away  to  spread  the  news  that  he  has  induced  the 
President  to  adopt  his  plan.  He  is  astounded 
when  the  President  denies  it.  The  President 
is  equally  astounded  that  the  Congressman 
should  have  made  such  a  statement.  He  had 
spoken  in  all  sincerity  when  he  indorsed  the 
spirit  of  the  Congressman's  remark  first  and 
modified  its  phraseology  so  slightly  afterward. 

"Smith  is  the  best  man  in  the  whole  batch 
for  District- Attorney,"  remarks  a  Senator,  after 
going  through  a  pile  of  application  papers  at 
the  White  House.  "You  are  quite  right,"  as 
sents  the  President:  "in  most  respects,  Smith 
is  the  best  man  in  the  batch."  But  later  that 
day  the  President  concludes  that  "most  respects" 

277 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


do  not  include  the  one  respect  which  he  is  spe 
cially  trying  to  meet  in  that  selection;  so  he 
decides  upon  Jones,  who  does  fill  the  bill  in  that 
particular,  though  he  may  not  in  others.  The 
Senator,  who  has  meanwhile  informed  Smith's 
friends  that  their  man  is  sure  of  appointment, 
goes  about  like  a  roaring  lion  when  he  hears 
of  Jones's  good  fortune,  alleging  that  the  Presi 
dent  has  changed  his  mind  without  warning. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Senator  was  simply 
misled  by  his  own  ear,  and  the  wish  that  was 
father  to  the  thought. 

Some  of  his  critics  who  lay  to  his  impulsive 
ness  everything  in  him  which  excites  no  respon 
sive  thrill  in  themselves,  charged  to  that  trait 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  tactics  as  Governor,  in  press 
ing  the  corporation  franchise  tax  bill.  The 
trouble  with  this  criticism  is  that  it  is  based  on 
a  short  memory.  For  years  before  he  became 
Governor  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  insisted  that  one 
of  the  weak  points  in  our  American  practise  of 
government  was  the  State's  willingness  to  give 
away  valuable  assets  which  in  any  private  busi 
ness  transaction  would  command  a  great  price. 
This  fact  seems  to  have  been  generally  forgot 
ten,  or  else  the  professional  politicians  assumed 
that,  like  themselves,  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  one  set 

278 


FRANCHISE   TAX 


of  ideas  for  the  consumption  of  his  friends  and 
for  discreet  campaign  use,  and  another  set  to 
govern  his  actual  practise  when  the  opportunity 
arrived.  At  any  rate,  as  soon  as  it  was  discov 
ered  that  he  really  intended  to  embody  his  views 
in  a  message  to  the  Legislature,  and  urge  the 
enactment  of  a  law  taxing  the  monopolistic 
franchises  of  corporations,  the  Republican  State 
machine  remonstrated. 

No  such  promise  had  been  made  in  the  party 
platform,  argued  the  leaders.  "More's  the 
pity,"  responded  the  Governor;  "it  was  a  sad 
oversight,  but  I'll  try  to  make  it  good."  The 
corporations  have  always  come  down  liberally 
when  the  campaign  hat  has  been  passed,  argued 
the  leaders.  "If  you  mean  that  they  thought 
they  were  buying  the  Republican  party,"  re 
sponded  the  Governor,  "it  is  high  time  that  we 
should  undeceive  them."  The  corporations 
deserve  just  as  much  consideration  as  any  one 
else  at  the  hands  of  the  State,  argued  the  lead 
ers.  "And,  conversely,  are  under  just  as  great 
obligations  to  the  State,"  responded  the  Gov 
ernor;  "that's  why  I'm  trying  to  even  things  up." 
There  is  great  danger  that  when  untrained  leg 
islators  or  assessors  undertake  a  specialty  like 
the  valuation  of  franchises,  they  will  blunder, 

279 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


argued  the  leaders.  "Then  we'll  call  in  the 
experts  to  help  us  frame  our  bill  or  trim  it  into 
shape,"  responded  the  Governor;  "we'll  have 
hearings  for  the  corporations,  and  they  will  be 
represented  by  the  best  talent  their  means  can 
command." 

It  was  easy  enough  to  have  a  bill  introduced 
at  the  beginning  of  the  session — the  framework 
of  a  measure  which  could  be  improved  and  fin 
ished  at  leisure;  but  when  this  presently  stuck 
fast  in  a  committee  pigeonhole,  how  was  it  to 
be  got  out?  It  was  easy  enough  to  invite  the 
corporations  to  come  forward  and  be  heard,  but 
who  could  compel  them  to  accept? 

The  newspapers  made  a  sensational  spread 
on  the  news.  Some  warned  the  corporations 
that  now  was  their  time  to  move  upon  the  Gov 
ernor  before  he  had  his  fighting  blood  aroused. 
Others,  perhaps  a  majority,  treated  the  matter 
as  if  it  were  one  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  so-called 
theatrical  outbursts  which  would  soon  pass  and 
be  forgotten.  The  corporations  shrugged  their 
shoulders  and  said  nothing. 

After  the  Governor  had  talked  to  a  good 
many  of  the  legislators,  he  reached  the  conclu 
sion  that  some  influence  was  at  work  against 
him  under  the  surface.  Whether  it  was  a  cor- 

280 


A   "LOST"   MESSAGE 


poration  lobby,  or  the  party  machine,  or  both, 
was  hard  to  make  out.  He  did  not  waste  a  great 
deal  of  time  trying  to  analyze  the  obstruction 
himself,  but  made  up  his  mind  to  apply  the 
solvent  of  an  aroused  popular  sentiment.  The 
end  of  the  session  was  at  hand,  and  under  the 
State  Constitution  the  only  way  he  could  get  that 
bill  before  the  Legislature  was  by  a  special  mes 
sage  declaring  the  business  urgent.  He  wrote 
the  message.  It  was  pretty  temperate  in  tone, 
but  contained,  as  his  messages  usually  do,  a 
very  plain  statement  of  facts.  It  was  inter 
cepted  and  "lost"  on  its  way  to  the  Legis 
lature. 

The  Governor  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
explanation  of  its  disappearance,  so  he  prepared 
a  duplicate  and  sent  it  in  at  once.  This  time 
he  took  precautions  to  see  that  it  got  safely  into 
the  hands  of  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly,  with 
a  warning  that  if  it  were  not  read  from  the 
Speaker's  desk,  another  copy  would  be  read  by 
a  member  on  the  floor.  It  was  read  from  the 
desk.  The  laggard  committeemen,  rather  than 
brave  the  chance  of  being  skinned  alive  in 
the  next  campaign,  voted  the  bill  out.  The 
members  of  both  houses,  actuated  by  the  same 
patriotic  motive,  decided  to  let  it  come  up  for 

281 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


passage;  enough  of  them  voted  "aye"  to  pass 
it,  and  the  Legislature  adjourned. 

Then  the  corporations  ceased  to  shrug  their 
shoulders  and  began  to  stir  around.  They  sent 
in  their  belated  acceptances  of  the  Governor's 
invitation,  and  asked  to  be  heard.  "Certainly," 
was  his  cheerful  answer,  "I'll  hear  you  with 
pleasure.  Why  didn't  you  speak  before?" 

Of  course,  they  didn't  like  the  bill  as  it 
stood.  "Well,"  said  the  Governor,  "I  don't 
know  that  I  am  entirely  satisfied  with  it  myself, 
but  it  was  the  best  we  could  do  under  the  cir 
cumstances." 

"Then  you  won't  sign  it?  You  will  post 
pone  the  whole  business  till  next  session  and  try 
again?"  pleaded  the  corporations. 

"One  proposition  at  a  time,  gentlemen,"  said 
the  Governor.  "I'm  willing  to  recommend  any 
proper  amendments  at  the  next  session,  but 
meanwhile — well,  you  know  the  old  proverb 
about  the  bird  in  the  hand?  I've  tried  all  win 
ter  to  get  a  bill ;  now  that  I've  got  one  I  don't 
think  I'd  better  let  it  slip  away  from  me.  I'll 
sign  this  bill,  and  then  I'll  sign  any  amendments 
passed  next  winter  that  commend  themselves  to 
my  judgment." 

"But  next  winter  is  some  distance  away,"  the 
282 


CORPORATE  DEFIANCE 


corporations  persisted.  "In  the  meantime  the 
law  will  have  gone  into  operation  and  irrepara 
ble  damage  been  done.  Let  this  bill  drop,  and 
call  an  extra  session  to  pass  one  that  will  be  fair 
all  around.  We'll  help  you." 

"If  you  really  mean  that,"  said  the  Gov 
ernor,  "I  will  split  the  difference  with  you.  I 
will  sign  this  bill:  that  secures  us  something,  in 
any  event.  Then  I'll  convene  an  extra  session, 
and  we  can  work  together  for  such  modifications 
as  would  be  just  and  right." 

Seeing  that  he  was  not  to  be  cajoled,  the 
pleaders  withdrew.  He  was  as  good  as  his 
word.  The  extra  session  met,  some  changes 
were  made  in  the  act,  but  not  so  radical  as  the 
corporations  wished.  "We'll  fight  your  law  in 
the  courts,"  they  thundered.  "By  all  means," 
he  answered  imperturbably;  "then  we'll  find  out 
which  side  is  right,  and  the  next  legislation  we 
put  through  will  avoid  any  mistakes  the  courts 
discover  in  this." 

The  entire  incident  may  have  been,  as  the 
critics  charge,  the  fruit  of  an  impulsive  tem 
perament  insufficiently  controlled;  but  most 
common  folk  will  fancy  that  they  can  detect 
traces  of  deliberation  and  method  in  it.  So 
they  will  in  the  Ahlwardt  episode. 

283 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Dr.  Ahlwardt,  the  German  anti-Semitic  agi 
tator,  visited  the  United  States  in  1895.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  then  Police  Commissioner  in 
New  York.  When  it  was  advertised  that  Ahl 
wardt  was  coming  to  that  city  to  make  a  pub 
lic  address  on  his  favorite  subject,  a  number  of 
the  anti-Semites  who  had  joined  in  this  invita 
tion  were  startled  by  a  sudden  thought,  and 
hastened  to  Police  Headquarters  to  assure  them 
selves  that  their  guest  would  be  protected  from 
violence.  They  carried  their  application  to 
the  President  of  the  Board. 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?"  asked  Mr.  Roose 
velt. 

"Dr.  Ahlwardt  is  often  very  bitter  in  his 
expressions,"  they  answered.  "The  Jews  may 
assemble  at  the  hall  and  mob  him." 

"That's  nonsense,"  said  the  Commissioner; 
"there  are  no  more  peaceable  citizens  in  New 
York  than  the  Jews." 

"But  we  should  feel  better  satisfied  if  you 
would  give  the  Doctor  a  special  guard  of  police 
on  the  evening  of  the  lecture,"  urged  the  deputa 
tion.  "Their  appearance  in  the  hall  would  awe 
the  intending  rioters." 

"Go  home  and  ease  your  minds,"  said  Mr. 
Roosevelt.  "Dr.  Ahlwardt  shall  have  a  special 

284 


A   HEBREW   BODY-GUARD 

guard  of  police,  and  it  will  be  the  most  im 
pressive-looking  body  of  men  on  the  force." 

His  visitors  withdrew,  with  many  expres 
sions  of  gratitude  which  he  received  with  a  sig 
nificant  smile.  He  had  already  formed  his 
plan,  and  sent  for  an  inspector  who  was  noted 
for  his  familiarity  with  the  personnel  of  the 
rank  and  file. 

"I  wish  a  list  made  of  thirty  good,  trusty,  in 
telligent  men,  all  Jews,"  said  the  Commissioner. 
"Don't  bother  yourself  to  hunt  up  their  religious 
antecedents;  take  those  who  have  the  most  pro 
nounced  Hebrew  physiognomy — the  stronger 
their  ancestral  marking  the  better.  When  you 
have  selected  the  detail,  order  them  to  report  to 
me  in  a  body." 

On  the  arrival  of  the  Jewish  officers,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  lined  them  up  before  him  for  scru 
tiny.  The  inspector  had  done  his  work  thor 
oughly.  A  more  Hebraic  group  of  Hebrews 
probably  never  were  gathered  in  one  small 
room.  St.  Paul's  Epistle  could  not  have  got 
past  that  open  door  if  it  had  been  shot  out  of 
a  catapult. 

"Now,"  said  the  Commissioner,  as  he  sur 
veyed  the  line  with  satisfaction  gleaming 
through  his  big  gold  spectacles,  "I  am  going  to 

285 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


assign  you  men  to  the  most  honorable  service 
you  have  ever  done — the  protection  of  an  enemy, 
and  the  defense  of  religious  liberty  and  free 
speech  in  the  chief  city  of  the  United  States. 
You  all  know  who  and  what  Dr.  Ahlwardt  is. 
I  am  going  to  put  you  in  charge  of  the  hall 
where  he  lectures,  and  hold  you  responsible  for 
perfect  good  order  there  throughout  the  even 
ing.  I  have  no  more  sympathy  with  Jew-bait 
ing  than  you  have.  But  this  is  a  country  where 
your  people  are  free  to  think  and  speak  and  act 
as  they  choose  in  religious  matters,  as  long  as 
you  do  not  interfere  with  the  peace  and  comfort 
of  your  neighbors,  and  Dr.  Ahlwardt  is  entitled 
to  the  same  privilege.  It  should  be  your  pride 
to  see  that  he  is  protected  in  it;  that  will  be  the 
finest  way  of  showing  your  appreciation  of  the 
liberty  you  yourselves  enjoy  under  the  Ameri 
can  flag." 

Imagine  the  feelings  of  Dr.  Ahlwardt's  sup 
porters  when  they  went  to  the  hall  on  the  even 
ing  of  his  address  prepared  for  a  disturbance, 
but  found  planted  like  pillars  at  the  doors,  and 
caryatids  inside,  an  array  of  police  with  features, 
coloring  and  accent  that  showed  them  to  belong 
to  the  very  race  against  whom  the  speaker  was 
to  declaim.  There  were  Jews  in  the  audience, 

286 


CHECKMATING  AN   AGITATOR 

too;  but,  whatever  their  impulse,  their  col 
leagues  in  uniform  set  them  an  example  of  per 
fect  outward  equanimity  and  self-control  which 
could  not  pass  unappreciated.  Only  one  specta 
tor  ventured  to  interrupt  the  proceedings;  be 
fore  he  had  had  a  chance  to  state  which  side  he 
was  on,  he  was  suppressed  by  a  stalwart  officer 
with  a  rarely  characteristic  profile,  and  hustled 
ignominiously  into  the  street. 

The  rest  of  the  show  was  as  placid  as  a  mill- 
pond.  The  most  disappointed  man  in  New 
York  that  night  undoubtedly  was  the  orator 
himself,  who  was  so  used  to  rousing  his  hearers 
to  frenzy  that  he  missed  the  inspiration  of  his 
customary  turmoil.  The  quiet  which  reigned 
everywhere  operated  as  a  cold  douche  not 
only  on  that  meeting,  but  on  the  entire  anti- 
Semitic  program  mapped  out  for  Ahlwardt's 
visit. 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  I  ought  to  say 
that  I  do  recall  one  case  of  "hot  impulse"  which 
perhaps  deserves  the  designation.  A  low  crea 
ture  in  the  form  of  a  man  had  been  convicted 
in  a  Western  State  of  unlawful  use  of  the  mails. 
Although  well  educated,  worthily  married,  with 
a  family  growing  up  about  him,  he  had  led 
astray  a  young  girl — scarcely  more  than  a  child 
20  287 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


in  maturity — and  then  had  written  to  her  ex 
plicit  instructions  how  to  hide  her  shame  by 
following  folly  with  crime.  The  court  had 
imposed  a  sentence  of  two  years'  imprisonment 
upon  him.  He  had  appealed,  but  without  ef 
fect,  as  the  conviction  was  securely  based. 

Before  he  had  been  in  the  penitentiary  a 
month  his  friends  got  up  a  petition  for  his  par 
don,  and  succeeded  in  inducing  ten  of  the  twelve 
jurors  to  sign  it.  The  memorial  set  forth  that 
"up  to  the  time  of  his  conviction,"  which  of 
course  included  the  period  while  he  was  com 
mitting  his  offenses,  he  had  been  "a  man  of 
good  moral  character  and  standing  in  the  com 
munity"  ;  that  a  family  was  dependent  upon  him 
for  support;  that  he  had  already  been  punished 
enough,  and  that  his  behavior  in  prison  had 
been  exemplary.  On  the  other  hand,  the  judge 
who  tried  the  case,  though  consenting  to  let  the 
petition  go  to  the  President,  declared  that  the 
evidence  showed  that  the  fellow  had  been  a  "cal 
culating  debaucher  of  female  virtue  and  a  wil 
ful  and  corrupt  perjurer";  while  the  District 
Attorney  added  that  the  trial  had  proved  the 
defendant  to  have  taken  advantage  of  his  victim 
"in  a  most  shocking  manner,"  and  that  there  was 
"not  a  single  redeeming  feature  in  his  case  and 

288 


CHARACTERISTIC   INDORSEMENT 

absolutely  nothing  that  would  tend  to  excuse 
him  or  excite  sympathy." 

Yet  this  brute  was  able  to  command  the 
assistance  of  a  multitude  of  the  best  citizens  in 
the  community  where  he  had  formerly  lived, 
and  the  services  of  the  entire  Congressional 
delegation  from  his  State  to  work  for  his  par 
don.  This  final  card  was  expected  to  prove  the 
winning  one,  and  it  was  played  for  its  full  effect; 
for  the  State  would  be  needed  by  Mr.  Roose 
velt  in  the  campaign  of  1904,  and  its  Senators 
and  Representatives  would  have  a  share  in  the 
convention  that  was  expected  to  nominate  him 
to  succeed  himself. 

The  President  scowled  harder  and  harder 
as  he  read  the  pardon  papers  through.  When 
he  had  finished  the  last  one,  he  set  his  teeth, 
jabbed  his  pen  into  the  ink  with  such  force  as 
almost  to  bend  its  nibs,  and  scribbled  an  in 
dorsement  on  the  petition,  of  which  the  conclu 
sion  ran  thus : 

"I  sincerely  regret  it  is  not  in  my  power 
materially  to  increase  the  sentence  of  this  scoun 
drel.  THEODORE  ROOSEVELT." 


289 


CHAPTER   XVII 

THE  MAN  OF  MANY  PARTS 

A  marvel  of  versatility — Spoiling  an  embryo  naturalist — Perils  of 
an  emphatic  style — Masterful  manners — Mr.  Roosevelt's 
work  as  an  author — Method  of  composition — His  newspaper 
reading. 

ELSEWHERE  I  have  referred  to  Mr.  Roose 
velt's  many-sided  quality.  Even  at  long  range 
this  characteristic  is  observable,  as  shown  by 
the  skit  in  an  English  periodical  which  greeted 
his  accession  to  the  Presidency: 

A  smack  of  Lord  Cromer,  Jeff  Davis  a  touch  of  him  ; 
A  little  of  Lincoln,  but  not  very  much  of  him  ; 
Kitchener,  Bismarck,  and  Germany's  Will, 
Jupiter,  Chamberlain,  Buffalo  Bill. 

In  all  his  varied  characters  he  has  been,  and 
is,  a  marvel  of  energy.  "A  steam-engine  in 
trousers"  was  what  Senator  Foraker  dubbed 
him.  "A  volcano  of  electricity"  was  the  phrase 
devised  by  the  Populist  Judge  Doster,  of  Kansas. 
"Theodore  the  Sudden"  was  another  title  that 

290 


SPOILING   A   SCIENTIST 


stuck  for  a  time.  One  of  his  biographers  de 
scribes  him  in  an  introductory  paragraph  as 
"that  amiable  and  gifted  author,  legislator,  field- 
sportsman,  soldier,  reformer  and  executive." 

This  is  a  pretty  good  postscript  for  one 
man's  name,  but  it  is  not  a  complete  catalogue, 
for  in  the  making  of  a  popular  leader  was  un 
doubtedly  spoiled  a  very  good  natural  scientist. 
The  most  conspicuous  ornaments  of  his  room  in 
college  were  skins  and  stuffed  animals.  His 
birds  he  mounted  himself.  Live  insects  and 
reptiles  were  always  in  evidence  in  his  study; 
his  chums  tell  a  funny  story  of  a  scene  when  he 
accidentally  let  loose  on  the  floor  of  a  Boston 
street-car  a  bundle  of  lobsters  he  was  carrying 
to  his  rooms  in  Cambridge  for  dissection;  and 
some  of  the  other  occupants  of  his  lodging-house 
were  thrown  into  a  panic  one  day  on  confront 
ing  in  an  upper  corridor  an  enormous  tortoise 
which  a  friend  had  sent  him  from  the  South 
Seas,  and  which  had  escaped  from  his  boot- 
closet  and  started  for  the  bath-room  in  search 
of  water.  His  graduating  paper  was  an  essay 
on  natural  history. 

The  late  "Tom"  Reed  of  Maine,  although 
full  of  appreciation  of  Roosevelt's  sturdy  vir 
tues,  could  not  repress  a  bit  of  irony  now  and 

291 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


then  at  the  expense  of  his  peculiarities.  "If 
there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  for  which 
I  admire  you,  Theodore,"  he  said  once,  "it  is 
your  original  discovery  of  the  Ten  Command 
ments."  This  shot,  of  course,  was  aimed  at  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  impressive  way  of  stating  well-set 
tled  and  familiar  truths  in  argument.  But  that 
trick  of  speech  is  not  more  characteristic  than 
another,  which  I  have  never  seen  mentioned  in 
any  of  the  printed  sketches  of  him.  His  love 
of  fair  dealing  forbids  his  leaving  a  proposi 
tion  half-stated,  waiting  for  comment  or  ques 
tions  from  some  interested  party  to  draw  out 
the  rest,  but  moves  him  always  to  adjust  the 
equilibrium  at  the  outset. 

For  example,  he  never  writes  a  line  to  de 
fend  his  negro  policy  because  it  is  simple  jus 
tice  to  the  negro,  without  adding  that  it  will 
prove  the  best  possible  thing  for  the  white  man 
also  in  the  long  run.  The  civilized  public  thor 
oughly  enjoyed  his  recent  letter  on  the  atroci 
ties  of  lynch  law,  apropos  of  the  frequency  with 
which  negroes  were  burned  at  the  stake  for  the 
most  hideous  of  crimes;  but  they  had  to  read 
with  it  some  equally  wholesome  comments  on 
the  crime  itself  and  the  punishment  it  deserved. 
His  speeches  on  the  right  of  labor  to  organize 

292 


BALANCING   OPINIONS 


for  its  own  protection  have  always  been  coupled 
with  a  reminder  that  this  right  does  not  justify 
the  commission  of  violence  of  any  sort;  and 
when  his  Trust  policy  had  exposed  him  to  at 
tack  as  an  enemy  of  capital,  his  answer  was: 
"We  shall  find  it  necessary  to  shackle  cunning 
as  in  the  past  we  have  shackled  force."  In  tell 
ing  an  audience  of  something  which  he  had 
done  for  a  Catholic  because  the  Catholic  was  a 
victim  of  religious  proscription  in  the  com 
munity  where  he  lived,  he  took  pains  to  add 
that  he  would  have  done  just  the  same  thing 
for  a  Protestant  if  the  local  situation  had  been 
reversed. 

This  is  an  admirable  practise  in  most  cases, 
because  it  insures  a  well-balanced  instead  of 
one-sided  presentation  of  any  subject.  But  now 
and  then  the  equilibrizing  process  seems  to  have 
been  dragged  in,  as  it  were,  from  pure  force  of 
habit,  and  then  it  mars  the  best  effect  of  what 
Mr.  Roosevelt  has  to  say;  as  where,  in  express 
ing  the  sorrow  of  the  American  people  for  the 
death  of  Queen  Victoria,  he  adopted  the  cau 
tious  prelude:  "In  view  of  the  sympathy  shown 
by  the  late  Queen  Victoria  with  our  loss  in  the 
death  of  President  McKinley,"  etc.  And  his 
description  of  the  explosion  of  a  Spanish  shell 

293 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


among  a  group  of  his  Rough  Riders,  resulting 
in  the  death  of  "a  singularly  gallant  young  Har 
vard  fellow,  Stanley  Hollister,"  is  rendered  al 
most  bathetic  by  the  next  sentence :  "An  equally 
gallant  young  fellow  from  Yale,  Theodore  Mil 
ler,  had  already  been  mortally  wounded." 

Most  men  who  have  been  in  his  position  are 
famous  for  some  single  sentence,  terse  in  itself 
and  forcefully  applicable  to  the  exigency  in 
which  it  was  used.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  name  is 
associated  with  several  such.  Still,  one  who  is 
familiar  with  his  habit  of  speech  might  wonder 
whether  he  would  not  have  lengthened  Grant's 
"Let  no  guilty  man  escape"  by  an  appendix, 
"but  guard  equally  the  innocent" ;  and  changed 
Cleveland's  "Tell  the  truth"  into  "Tell  both 
sides." 

The  gift  of  ready  expression  with  which  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  endowed  by  nature  has  hurt  rather 
than  helped  what  might  have  been  an  uncom 
monly  good  style.  In  both  speaking  and  wri 
ting  he  knows  what  he  wishes  to  say,  and  says  it 
without  hesitancy  or  reserve.  But  he  has  a 
positive  genius  for  epigram  and  satire,  and  the 
possessor  of  such  a  faculty  is  apt  to  be  led  into 
extremes  in  speech.  Mr.  Roosevelt  fairly  lives 
in  an  atmosphere  of  superlatives.  He  will 

294 


SUPERLATIVE  EXPRESSION 

speak  of  a  "perfectly  good  man  with  a  perfectly 
honest  motive,"  where  all  that  he  intends  to  say 
is  that  the  man  is  well-meaning.  He  is  "de 
lighted"  where  most  of  us  are  pleased.  The 
latest  visitor  is  "just  the  very  man  I  wanted  to 
see,"  and  "nothing  I  have  heard  in  a  long  time 
has  interested  me  so  much"  as  the  passing  bit 
of  information. 

Because  of  this  habit  of  extreme  expression 
I  am  sometimes  asked  whether  I  consider  the 
President  a  fair  judge  of  men.  I  should  assent 
with  the  reservation:  when  he  takes  time  to 
weigh  his  first  suggestions.  His  danger  lies 
two  facts:  first,  his  own  natural  candor,  whicl 

/ 

leads  him  to  accept  a  man  of  aggressive  mien 
at  face  value  but  makes  him  suspicious  of  hesi 
tancy  of  manner;  second,  the  enormous  variety 
of  human  types  he  has  met  in  the  course  of  his 
wanderings,  and  the  amount  of  good  he  has 
found  under  many  unpromising  exteriors,  so 
that  the  keenness  of  his  original  impressions  has 
been  somewhat  dulled.  He  has  a  sanguine  tem 
perament,  and  would  rather  find  a  stranger  a 
"good  fellow"  than  not,  and  the  right  sort  of  an 
introduction  often  prepares  the  way  for  a  kindly 
judgment. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  recall  one  case  where 
295 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


he  refused  to  be  reconciled  to  the  presence  of 
a  certain  holdover  in  office,  and  the  only  reason 
he  vouchsafed  for  his  dislike  was:  "I  had  him 
in  here  the  other  day  to  ask  him  some  questions, 
and  he  tried  to  doddle  with  me."  Knowing 
the  obnoxious  officer  as  I  did,  I  understood  the 
phrase  perfectly;  and  when  I  ran  the  matter 
down  I  found  that  his  offending  consisted  in 
his  hesitation  to  answer  certain  questions  which 
he  thought,  in  the  interest  of  good  discipline, 
ought  to  be  asked  of  the  head  of  his  depart 
ment  rather  than  of  himself. 

While  not  a  martinet  in  ordinary  matters, 
Mr.  Roosevelt  can  exercise  the  iron  rule  of  a 
despot  on  occasion.  He  will  accept  no  excuse 
from  officers  of  high  rank  and  education  in 
either  arm  of  the  war  service,  when  they  per 
sist  in  squabbling  to  the  scandal  of  their  asso 
ciates  and  the  demoralization  of  the  rank  and 
file.  The  Miles-Corbin  feud  was  still  linger 
ing  when  he  became  President.  He  brought 
his  fist  down  with  the  order,  "Stop  it!"  and  it 
stopped.  General  Miles  passed  some  unneces 
sary  comments  on  the  Sampson-Schley  contro 
versy,  of  which  the  public  had  already  had  a 
nauseating  dose;  he  was  rebuked  at  once,  and 
in  a  manner  which  showed  that  the  President 

296 


CUTTING  QUARRELS  SHORT 

meant  to  adopt  more  serious  measures  if  the 
General  did  not  heed  his  first  admonition.  Two 
rear-admirals  of  the  navy  who,  at  the  close  of 
the  court  of  inquiry  in  the  same  case,  took  ex 
ception  to  the  mildness  of  the  findings,  received 
something  as  near  a  reprimand  as  the  law  would 
permit  the  President  to  administer  except  as  the 
result  of  a  trial.  Edgar  Stanton  Maclay,  an 
employee  in  the  Brooklyn  navy-yard  who  had 
written  a  history  denouncing  Schley  as  a  caitiff 
and  a  coward,  and  something  little  short  of  a 
traitor,  was  dismissed  summarily  from  his  posi 
tion.  But  when  Schley's  partizans  in  Congress 
let  it  come  to  the  President's  ears  that  they 
thought  of  introducing  a  resolution  flattering 
their  hero  and  reflecting  on  his  enemies,  the 
President  let  it  come  to  their  ears  in  return  that 
he  should  veto  the  resolution  in  a  message  which 
might  result  in  mortification  for  somebody. 

No  stated  communications  passed  between 
the  White  House  and  the  Capitol;  there  were 
no  face-to-face  consultations;  everything  was 
conducted  in  the  same  informal  manner  on  the 
President's  part  as  on  that  of  the  Congressmen, 
so  that  no  one  could  complain  afterward  of 
threats  or  other  unbecoming  compulsions.  But 
he  gave  them  distinctly  to  understand  that  for 

297 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


decency's  sake  he  had  himself  abstained  from 
doing  anything  to  keep  alive  this  unfortunate 
quarrel;  that  he  had  treated  both  sides  with 
equal  justice  throughout;  and  that  he  was  re 
solved  to  throttle  any  attempt  to  drag  him  fur 
ther  into  the  matter,  or  to  prolong  public  dis 
cussion  of  it  to  the  damage  of  an  honorable 
service.  That  ended  the  folly.  To  muster  a 
two-thirds  vote  aganist  a  veto  by  a  highly  popu 
lar  President,  issued  in  behalf  of  peace,  was 
more  of  a  task  than  the  authors  of  the  proposed 
resolution  cared  to  tackle.  With  their  retire 
ment  from  the  field  the  Sampson-Schley  con 
troversy,  which  had  been  carried  on  continu 
ously  for  three  and  one-half  years,  passed  out 
of  sight  in  a  single  night — and  forever,  as  all 
good  citizens  will  devoutly  hope. 

All  his  life  he  has  been  taking  up  lines  of 
work  which  other  men  have  followed,  but  hunt 
ing  for  something  to  do  there  which  they  have 
overlooked.  As  Assistant  Secretary  he  found 
everything  in  the  naval  establishment  at  loose 
ends,  so  that  the  head  of  the  department  could 
not  have  acted  quickly  and  on  accurate  informa 
tion  in  case  of  war.  For  example,  the  latest  re 
vised  list  purporting  to  show  the  names,  capacity, 
and  size  of  crews  of  the  merchant  vessels  which 

298 


PREPARING   THE  NAVY 


could  be  drafted  into  the  auxiliary  navy  if 
needed,  contained  the  names  of  three  ships 
which  had  been  destroyed  or  lost  since  the  re 
port  was  made  up,  although  one  of  these  disas 
ters  had  filled  whole  pages  of  newspaper  space 
about  the  time  of  its  occurrence.  The  fact  that 
such  antiquated  data  had  been  allowed  to  re 
main  among  the  live  records  of  the  depart 
ment  showed  that  it  had  been  made  nobody's 
special  business  to  keep  the  list  abreast  of  the 
times. 

This  and  similar  discoveries  led  Mr.  Roose 
velt  to  order  a  general  cleaning-up  and  the 
preparation  of  a  complete  property  list.  His 
plan  aroused  much  criticism,  nevertheless,  both 
in  and  out  of  the  service.  Inside,  it  devolved 
extra  hard  duty  for  a  while  upon  the  clerical 
force  in  Washington  and  at  the  naval  stations; 
outside,  it  smacked  of  jingoism  because  it  could 
not  be  done  in  secret,  and  from  the  news  that 
the  United  States  navy  was  getting  into  con 
dition  for  war  the  natural  inference  was  that 
war  was  expected.  Yet  throughout  the  period 
of  greatest  activity,  and  though  absolutely  con 
vinced  in  his  own  mind  that  war  was  coming 
and  coming  soon,  Mr.  Roosevelt  lost  no  op 
portunity  to  discourage  "war  talk"  among  his 

299 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


subordinates.  He  would  submit  to  no  news 
paper  interviews  on  the  subject  himself,  and  in 
every  way  did  what  he  could  to  allay  popular 
excitement.  Only  with  his  associates  in  the 
Government,  or  in  company  where  he  felt  that 
his  confidence  would  be  respected,  would  he 
discuss  his  private  views. 

A  characteristic  story  is  told  of  his  insistence 
on  constant  target  practise  in  the  navy.  Early 
in  his  administration  he  asked  for  and  received 
an  extraordinarily  large  appropriation  for  am 
munition.  A  few  months  later  he  called  for 
another.  This  startled  Congress.  Questioned 
as  to  what  had  become  of  his  first  fund,  he  an 
swered:  "Every  cent  of  it  has  been  spent  for 
powder  and  shot,  and  every  bit  of  powder  and 
shot  has  been  fired."  And  when  asked  what  he 
intended  doing  with  the  additional  amount:  "I 
shall  use  every  dollar  of  that,  too,  within  the 
next  thirty  days  in  practise  shooting.  That's 
what  ammunition  is  made  for — to  burn." 

His  impatience  of  red  tape  was  a  standing 
topic  of  comment  at  the  department.  The 
bureaucrats  who  surrounded  him  there  were 
never  able  to  understand  why  they  should  not 
be  permitted  to  go  on  as  they  had,  doing  things 
by  rote,  no  matter  how  much  time  might  be 

300 


LITERARY   ACTIVITIES 


consumed  thereby  to  no  purpose.  One  com 
mittee  which  had  met  with  him  daily  for  a 
week,  and  adjourned  every  afternoon  without 
making  any  discernible  progress,  left  him 
pacing  the  floor.  "To-morrow,"  said  one  of 
the  party  as  they  went  out,  "we  can  do  so- 
and-so." 

"To-morrow!"  echoed  Mr.  Roosevelt,  halt 
ing  and  gritting  his  teeth.  "Gentlemen,  if 
Noah  had  had  to  consult  such  a  committee  as 
this  about  building  his  ark,  it  wouldn't  have 
been  built  yet!" 

No  book  about  Theodore  Roosevelt  would 
be  complete,  of  course,  without  at  least  a  refer 
ence  to  his  work  as  an  author.  As  I  have 
attempted  in  this  volume  no  more  serious  task 
than  the  grouping  of  a  few  personal  recollec 
tions  and  impressions,  I  must  leave  anything 
like  criticism  of  his  literary  enterprises,  or  even 
a  comprehensive  bibliography,  to  other  hands. 
Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  his  chief  activities  in 
this  field  are  represented  by  his  "Naval  War 
of  1812,"  which  deserves  mention  by  itself  be 
cause  it  has  always  been  regarded  as  the  stand 
ard  text-book  on  its  subject,  though  published 
within  two  years  of  his  graduation  from  Har 
vard;  "Hunting  Trips  of  a  Ranchman";  biog- 

301 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


raphies  of  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  Gouverneur 
Morris  and  Oliver  Cromwell;  "Ranch  Life  and 
the  Hunting  Trail";  "The  Winning  of  the 
West,"  which  ranks  next  to  his  story  of  1812 
as  a  monumental  history;  "The  Wilderness 
Hunter" ;  "New  York" ;  "The  Rough  Riders" ; 
and  collections  of  essays  entitled  "American 
Ideals"  and  "The  Strenuous  Life." 

Besides  these,  he  has  produced  several  minor 
works,  and  collaborated  as  author,  compiler  and 
editor  of  composite  volumes  on  historical  and 
sporting  topics.  Although  he  realizes  the  value 
and  popularity  of  many  of  his  publications,  he 
tells  with  glee  of  a  visit  he  once  paid  to  a  book 
store  in  Idaho  where  he  had  noticed  a  copy  of 
his  "Winning  of  the  West"  in  the  window. 
Falling  into  conversation  with  the  proprietor, 
he  motioned  with  his  thumb  toward  the  history, 
inquiring  with  feigned  curiosity:  "Who  is  this 
man  Roosevelt?" 

"Oh,"  was  the  answer,  "he's  a  ranch-driver 
up  in  the  cattle  country." 

"What's  your  opinion  of  his  work?" 

The  dealer  hesitated  a  moment  and  then 
remarked,  meditatively:  "Well,  I've  always 
thought  I'd  like  to  meet  the  author  and  tell  him 
that  if  he'd  stuck  to  running  ranches  and  not 

302 


A   SPECIMEN   PAGE 


1> 


*+    <*Z 


UZ*      ^«Xr^^ 


o»*xf 


^f, 


4jL**r*r*.0 


<*~*£~^-~ 


<*-&*  <*iP. 


*~& 


~~* 


CLOSING   PARAGRAPH   OF   THE    PRESIDENT'S    ESSAY   ON    "THE 
STRENUOUS  LIFE,"    IN    HIS   OWN    HANDWRITING. 


81 


303 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


tried  to  write  books,  he'd  have  cut  a  heap  bigger 
figure  at  his  trade." 

\  Mr.  Roosevelt's  methods  in  writing  are  his 
own.  They  are  bound  to  be,  if  he  would  write 
at  all;  for  a  man  who  between  necessity  and 
choice  spends  so  much  of  his  time  in  the  com 
pany  of  others,  would  stand  a  poor  chance  as 
a  maker  of  books  if  he  were  obliged  to  seclude 
himself  for  several  hours  a  day  behind  barred 
doors  in  his  study.  Fortunately  for  him  and 
for  the  reading  public,  he  has  a  faculty  lacking 
in  authors  generally — the  ability  to  halt  a  piece 
of  literary  work  anywhere,  go  about  other  busi 
ness,  and  then  return  to  his  composition  and 
take  up  its  threads  where  he  had  let  them  fall, 
never  sacrificing  his  continuity  of  thought  or 
rhetorical  construction. 

Most  of  his  original  composing  is  done  on 
his  feet,  pacing  up  and  down  the  room  and  dic 
tating  to  a  stenographer.  He  does  not  even  see 
how  his  periods  hang  together  till  they  have 
been  reduced  to  typewritten  form  and  the  sheets 
laid  upon  his  desk.  Then,  when  an  interval  of 
reduced  tension  comes,  his  eye  falls  upon  the 
manuscript  and  lingers  there.  If  he  is  con 
versing,  the  closing  words  of  the  next  sentence 
are  uttered  in  a  dreamy  tone  and  die  away 

304 


METHODS   OF   COMPOSITION 

almost  with  a  drawl,  as  his  glance  sweeps  across 
the  uppermost  page  on  the  pile  and  he  sidles 
absent-mindedly  into  his  seat  and  bends  over 
the  table.  His  left  hand  lifts  the  top  sheet  while 
the  right  gropes  for  a  pen,  and  in  a  moment  the 
author  is  quite  buried  in  his  work,  annotating 
between  the  lines  as  he  reads. 

The  friend  who  is  with  him  probably  re 
spects  his  mood  and  subsides  into  a  sofa-corner, 
or  warms  his  hands  before  the  fire,  or  amuses 
himself  at  the  window  till  the  first  force  of  ab 
sorption  has  spent  itself  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  lifts 
his  head  to  remark,  "Now,  here  is  where  I  be 
lieve  I  have  made  a  point  never  before  brought 
out,"  and  proceeds  to  read  aloud  a  passage  and 
descant  upon  it.  If  this  impromptu  enlarge 
ment  transcends  certain  bounds,  the  speaker  is 
on  his  feet  again  in  an  instant  and  pacing  the 
floor  as  he  talks.  Sentence  follows  sentence 
from  his  lips  like  shots  from  the  muzzle  of  a 
magazine-gun — all  well-timed  and  well-aimed 
in  spite  of  their  swiftness  of  utterance.  The 
chances  are  that  one  of  them  will  recoil  to  im 
press  its  author  afresh  with  its  aptness,  and  back 
he  will  sidle  into  the  vacant  chair  to  put  that 
idea  into  visible  form  with  his  pen  and  wedge 
it  in  between  two  others. 

30S 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Next  to  describing  a  hunting  adventure  or 
painting  an  historical  picture — for  that  is  his 
style  as  a  chronicler  rather  than  parading  a 
sequence  of  names  and  dates  and  events — his 
greatest  fondness  is  for  reviewing  books,  and  his 
services  are  in  constant  demand.  I  have  rarely 
seen  him  engaged  in  this  line  of  composition 
with  the  subject  of  his  review  bodily  before  him, 
though  it  is  usually  in  the  hands  of  his  copyist 
with  certain  paragraphs  marked  for  insertion 
in  his  manuscript.  But  he  knows  the  book 
from  a  single  reading,  accomplished  in  less  time 
than  it  would  take  most  of  us  to  struggle  through 
twenty  pages. 

As  a  reader,  his  mind  operates  almost  like 
the  automatic  counter  in  a  mint:  to  what  it 
wants,  or  expects  to  find,  it  seems  to  be  guided 
by  unerring  instinct;  the  rest  it  rejects  quite  as 
swiftly  and  surely.  To  watch  him  read  a  book, 
it  appears  as  if  he  were  merely  running  his  eye 
down  so  many  margins  in  a  dictionary,  to  catch 
a  title  here  and  there  of  which  he  is  especially  in 
search.  This  method  is  probably  the  fruit  of 
many  years*  experience  in  a  variety  of  fields. 
As  the  old  mariner  knows  how  to  scan  a  log 
without  waste  of  time,  and  the  trained  scientist 
understands  what  to  ignore  as  familiar  and  what 

306 


READING   HABITS 


to  exploit  as  a  fresh  discovery,  so  the  intelli 
gence  of  this  many-sided  man  responds  mag 
netically  to  the  presence  of  a  new  idea  or  a  par 
ticularly  vigorous  presentation  of  an  old  one. 

He  reads  a  newspaper  article,  by  the  way, 
in  much  the  same  manner,  though  naturally  with 
still  greater  swiftness.  Flash — boom — and  his 
shot  has  struck  the  very  central  thought  in  a 
column  of  one  thousand  words.  In  thirty  years' 
observation  of  exchange-readers  in  newspaper 
offices,  I  have  never  seen  anything  to  approach 
his  celerity.  Moreover,  the  answer  to  the  argu 
ment,  or  the  refutation  of  the  charge,  is  out 
almost  in  the  same  breath  that  voices  the  closing 
sentence  from  the  type. 

And  speaking  of  newspapers,  no  misappre 
hension  is  more  wide-spread  than  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  given  to  newspaper  reading.  On 
the  contrary,  his  indulgence  in  this  practise  is 
sparing  beyond  that  of  almost  any  public  man 
I  have  ever  known.  If  he  is  doing  something 
which  is  likely  to  create  excitement  in  a  certain 
neighborhood,  he  may  direct  one  of  his  clerks 
to  watch  the  comments  of  the  local  press  and 
bring  him  any  that  are  particularly  trenchant. 
He  has  occasionally  subscribed  to  a  clippings 
bureau.  But  this  is  about  as  far  as  he  goes. 

307 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


He  does  not  object  to  criticism,  as  such. 
Even  ridicule  is  welcome,  if  it  be  founded  on 
fact  and  witty  in  form.  The  pictorial  carica 
ture  is  his  delight,  which  is  not  dampened  by 
the  fact  that  it  may  make  him  appear  as  a  mere 
effigy  composed  of  slouch-hat,  top-boots,  knot 
ted  neckerchief,  glistening  spectacles  and  tomb 
stone  teeth.  The  one  thing  he  can  not  endure 
in  print  is  a  falsehood  about  himself.  An  ed 
itorial  attack  which  assumes  such  a  falsehood 
as  true  without  inquiry,  or  which  turns  upon 
an  obviously  deliberate  misconstruction  of  his 
words  or  acts,  comes  next  in  order  as  an  in 
centive  to  his  wrath.  The  force  of  the  explo 
sion  which  follows  depends  upon  circumstances, 
but  it  is  safe  to  count  on  the  explosion  every 
time. 


308 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

SOME    CHARACTERISTIC    TRAITS 

Horsemanship  and  hard  tramps — The  family  man  at  home — Rol 
licking  with  the  children — A  champion  of  chaste  living — 
White  House  hospitalities — The  religious  life  of  the  President. 

"Dm  you  go  into  literature  with  a  view  to 
making  it  your  profession?"  inquired  an  inter 
viewer  who  had  worked  his  way  into  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  library  and  found  it  about  equally 
devoted  to  books,  pictures,  stuffed  game  and 
live  pets. 

"No,"  answered  the  host,  "I  went  into  it 
because  I  liked  it." 

"Did  you  not  take  the  usual  course  of 
poetry,  fiction,  essays  and  criticism?" 

"No,  I  studied  American  history  and  hunt 
ing — especially  big  game." 

"Then  you  do  not  care  a  great  deal  for  our 
modern  literature  of  psychological  analysis?" 

"I  should  care  a  great  deal  more  for  a  first- 
rate  American  literature  of  outdoor  sports. 
But  I  don't  include  among  sports  mere  attend- 

3°9 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


ance  at  a  horse-race,  for  instance;  the  only  kind 
I  am  interested  in  are  those  in  which  men  take 
an  active  part  themselves." 

This  did  not  mean  that  he  was  indifferent 
to  horses.  From  his  cowboy  days  he  has  always 
had  a  lively  taste  for  riding,  and  his  steed  must 
be  one  of  spirit  or  he  will  have  none  of  it.  Soon 
after  he  became  President  he  wished  to  add  a 
few  good  saddle-horses  to  his  stable,  and  com 
missioned  an  acquaintance  to  find  them.  The 
person  thus  honored  was  duly  impressed  with 
the  gravity  of  the  task,  for  it  would  never  do, 
of  course,  to  let  a  President  of  the  United  States 
break  his  neck.  So  he  selected  two  animals  dis 
tinguished  as  much  for  their  dignity  of  deport 
ment  as  their  excellence  of  pedigree,  and  sent 
them  to  the  White  House.  The  President  or 
dered  them  out  for  trial.  The  first  horse  cara 
coled  about  with  grace  and  precision,  as  if  ac 
customed  to  being  ridden  in  a  procession;  the 
second  began  by  taking  little  mincing  steps,  and, 
when  goaded  by  main  force  into  a  gallop  and 
put  at  a  three-foot  hurdle,  meekly  stopped  and 
smelt  of  the  obstruction.  With  a  deep  sigh  the 
rider  alighted  and  threw  his  bridle  to  a  groom. 

"Well,  sir?"  said  the  man,  inquiringly. 

"Oh,  for  goodness'  sake,  send  them  back," 
310 


AN   AFTERNOON   SPIN 


exclaimed  the  President.  "I  ordered  horses — 
not  rabbits!" 

Next  to  horseback- riding  as  an  outdoor  ex 
ercise,  Mr.  Roosevelt  esteems  walking.  But 
walking  with  him  is  not  a  leisurely  stroll 
through  the  woods  and  fields  or  over  beaten 
roads,  but  the  strenuous  sort  which  makes  the 
nerves  tingle  as  well  as  the  blood.  His  great 
delight,  when  he  needs  a  change  from  his  usual 
canter,  is  to  gather  a  group  of  congenial  spirits 
and  make  a  dash  "on  shanks'  trotters"  through 
the  country  on  the  outskirts  of  Washington, 
coming  in  at  their  head  on  the  return  as  fresh 
as  a  daisy,  while  his  companions  trudge  off  in 
search  of  bath  and  bed.  It  gives  him  particu 
lar  pleasure,  in  organizing  a  walking  party,  to 
include  at  least  one  untried  man.  Such  a  tramp 
as  he  lays  out  enables  him  to  measure  the  novi 
tiate's  mettle. 

One  fine  day  about  two  years  ago,  he  in 
vited  a  few  friends  to  an  afternoon  spin  up  the 
shore  of  the  Potomac.  A  special  invitation  was 
extended  to  a  newly  appointed  bureau  chief  on 
whom  the  President  was  depending  for  some 
courageous  but  delicate  work.  The  chief  was 
young,  lithe  of  build,  athletic  in  appearance, 
and  it  seemed  desirable  to  put  him  to  a  test  of 

3" 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


endurance  and  ingenuity.  Another  person 
favored  was  an  office-holder  with  a  fair  reputa 
tion  for  grit  but  too  large  a  girth  for  his  own 
good;  the  idea  was  to  reduce  this  a  little.  The 
President,  of  course,  set  the  pace  with  his  long 
quick  stride,  and  the  rest  ambled  after  as  best 
they  could.  The  shore  path  was  pleasant 
enough  and  not  too  difficult  till  a  point  was 
reached  where  a  stone-quarry  jutted  out  into 
the  river.  The  workmen  had  put  a  cable  over 
one  of  the  rocks  which  ran  straight  down  into 
the  water,  to  help  them  crawl  around  it;  there 
was  a  boat  at  hand,  also,  for  the  use  of  any  one 
who  was  afraid  to  trust  himself  to  the  cable. 

The  party  halted  only  a  moment — just  long 
enough  to  see  how  the  land  lay.  "The  boat  for 
me,"  said  a  Senator  who,  though  proportioned 
for  agility,  was  a  little  out  of  practise  and  had 
a  great  respect  for  his  own  dignity.  "For  me, 
too,"  said  the  stout  office-holder,  dropping  in 
after  the  Senator  and  making  a  place  ready  for 
the  President.  "Meet  me  on  the  other  side," 
laughed  the  President,  and  started  across  the 
sheer  face  of  the  rock,  disdaining  the  aid  of  the 
cable,  but  using  toes  and  finger-tips  to  clutch 
at  the  little  niches  left  by  the  blasts.  If  he  had 
missed  his  hold  anywhere,  he  would  have  had  a 

312 


HOME   LIFE 


souse  in  ten  feet  of  muddy  water.  But  he  didn't. 
His  son  Theodore  and  the  new  bureau  chief 
followed  where  he  led.  All  got  home  in  safety 
some  time  after  nightfall,  and  the  next  day  the 
gossip  of  the  town  was  their  adventure  at  the 
big  quarry  rock.  The  minor  members  called 
it  "scaling  the  Matte rhorn";  the  President 
called  it  "bully." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  love  of  family  and  home 
amounts  to  a  passion.  I  remember  one  even 
ing  when,  to  a  party  of  friends  around  his  table, 
he  had  been  describing  with  his  usual  enthu 
siasm  the  delights  of  his  life  on  the  Western 
plains,  and  some  one  turned  to  him  with  the 
remark:  "With  your  love  of  that  free  existence, 
I  wonder  you  ever  settled  down  in  the  hum 
drum  East.  Honestly,  now,  don't  you  wish  you 
had  been  born  and  reared  on  a  ranch?" 

An  affirmative  answer  was  on  the  tip  of  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  tongue  when  he  suddenly  paused, 
and  cast  a  quick  glance,  plainly  involuntary  and 
almost  embarrassed,  past  the  questioner,  where 
it  settled  on  our  hostess  with  an  expression  which 
could  not  be  mistaken.  Then  he  began,  hesi 
tatingly: 

"No,  because " 

"I  know  why,"  exclaimed  one  of  the  ladies. 

3*3 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


"Why?"  he  asked,  with  an  air  of  challenge. 

"Because  you  would  not  then  have  known 
Mrs.  Roosevelt." 

"That  was  what  I  was  going  to  say,"  he  con 
fessed.  It  was  a  tribute  straight  from  the  heart. 

The  persistency  of  his  refusal  to  let  anything 
interrupt  his  daily  exercise  in  the  open,  is 
matched  only  by  the  unfailing  regularity  of  the 
President's  frolic  with  his  children.  Of  the 
six,  two  have  now  passed  beyond  the  age  of 
rough-and-tumble  play,  but  with  the  younger 
ones  he  can  still  be  a  child  again  for  a  little 
while  each  day.  One  of  his  favorite  sports  in 
the  old  times  used  to  be  the  game  of  bear.  It 
was  played  on  the  floor  if  in  the  house,  or  on 
the  grass  outdoors,  and  on  all  fours  to  preserve 
the  dramatic  realism.  First  he  was  a  big  bear 
with  a  terrifying  growl,  and  the  others  were  the 
young  hunters;  then,  when  they  had  killed  or 
captured  the  object  of  their  chase,  they  became 
bears  in  turn  and  he  the  hunter.  A  convenient 
table  or  a  bush  with  space  to  crawl  under  made 
a  model  den  for  Bruin,  and  almost  anything 
answered  for  firearms  for  his  pursuers. 

The  most  uncomfortable  feature  of  the  new 
arrangement  of  the  White  House,  with  the  ex 
ecutive  offices  so  far  removed  from  the  family 


WITH   THE   CHILDREN 


quarters,  is  that  the  little  people  can  not  peep 
in  from  the  next  room  and  say  good  night  when 
the  father  is  burning  the  midnight  oil  over  his 
work  for  the  state.  It  has  its  advantages  from 
another  point  of  view,  however;  as  there  has 
been  no  necessity,  since  the  change,  for  inter 
rupting  a  Cabinet  meeting  in  order  that  the 
President  might  step  into  the  corridor  and 
"shoo"  away  two  sturdy-lunged  boys  who  were 
romping  there. 

The  family  all  have  pets  and  are  devoted 
to  them.  Archie,  next  to  the  youngest  lad,  has 
for  his  chief  joy  a  pony,  so  ridiculously  small 
that  one  looks  to  see  the  stalwart  attendant  who 
accompanies  him  pick  it  up  and  lift  it  over  wet 
spots  and  hard  places  in  the  road.  All  the 
children  are  brought  up  to  ride,  from  the  time 
they  are  large  enough  to  bestride  a  saddle. 
This  is  a  part  of  the  program  of  self-reliance 
and  fearlessness  mapped  out  for  them.  No  veto 
is  put  upon  their  climbing  propensities,  and 
they  make  free  with  the  trees  and  even  with  the 
architecture  of  the  White  House.  The  entire 
premises  are  theirs  as  long  as  they  avoid  being 
nuisances  to  persons  who  have  business  there. 

The  President's  letter  on  "race  suicide," 
printed  as  a  preface  to  Mrs.  Van  Vorst's  book, 

3*5 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


"The  Woman  Who  Toils,"  has  been  so  per 
verted  in  meaning  by  some  writers  who  have 
commented  on  it,  that  the  mass  of  the  public 
who  have  not  read  its  text  have  obtained  a  very 
strange  idea  of  his  views.  The  kernel  of  this 
deliverance  is  to  be  found  in  two  sentences :  "If  a 
man  or  woman,  through  no  fault  of  his  or  hers, 
goes  throughout  life  deprived  of  those  highest  of 
all  joys  which  spring  only  from  home  life,  from 
the  having  and  bringing  up  of  many  healthy 
children,  I  feel  for  them  deep  and  respectful 
sympathy.  .  .  .  But  the  man  or  woman  who 
deliberately  avoids  marriage  and  has  a  heart  so 
cold  as  to  know  no  passion  and  a  brain  so  shallow 
and  selfish  as  to  dislike  children,  is  in  effect  a 
criminal  against  the  race  and  should  be  an  ob 
ject  of  contemptuous  abhorrence  by  all  healthy 
people."  The  letter  is  not,  as  so  widely  repre 
sented,  an  instigation  to  a  riot  of  physical  forces 
in  mankind,  but  an  appeal  to  the  moral  being. 
It  is  merely  a  protest  against  a  form  of  selfish 
ness  which  robs  nature  of  her  perfect  work. 

No  better  place  than  this,  perhaps,  can  be 
found  for  mentioning  one  other  trait  of  the 
President's  which  in  our  age  of  easy  morals 
gives  its  possessor  a  certain  distinction.  It  bore 
fruit  in  a  general  order  issued  to  the  army  by 


CLEAN   LIVING 


his  direction  in  March,  1902,  aimed  against 
strong  drink  and  licentiousness,  and  saying 
among  other  things:  "It  is  the  duty  of  regi 
mental  and  particularly  of  company  officers,  to 
try  by  precept  and  example  to  point  out  to  the 
men  under  their  control,  and  particularly  to 
the  younger  men,  the  inevitable  misery  and  dis 
aster  which  follow  upon  intemperance  and  upon 
moral  uncleanliness  and  vicious  living.  The 
officers  should,  of  course,  remember  always  that 
the  effect  of  what  they  say  must  depend  largely 
upon  the  lives  they  themselves  lead.  As  a  na 
tion,  we  feel  keen  pride  in  the  valor,  discipline 
and  steadfast  endurance  of  our  soldiers,  and 
hand  in  hand  with  these  qualities  must  go  the 
virtues  of  self-restraint,  self-respect  and  self- 
control." 

And  in  a  speech  delivered  to  young  men  at 
Oyster  Bay  he  went  further  and  declared:  "I 
am  addressing  strong,  vigorous  men  who  are  en 
gaged  in  the  active,  hard  work  of  life,  and  there 
fore  men  who  will  count  for  good  or  for  evil, 
and  it  is  peculiarly  incumbent  upon  you  who 
have  strength  to  set  a  right  example  to  others. 
I  ask  you  to  remember  that  you  can  not  retain 
your  self-respect  if  you  are  loose  and  foul  of 
tongue,  and  that  a  man  who  is  to  lead  a  clean 

317 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


and  honorable  life  must  inevitably  suffer  if  his 
speech  likewise  is  not  clean  and  honorable."  It 
will  be  a  pleasant  reflection  for  Americans  that 
their  President  is  one  of  those  men  with  whom 
chastity  of  living  and  purity  of  mind  are  some 
thing  more  than  a  mere  poetic  ideal,  and  who 
believe  that  a  race  which  has  been  made  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels  may  still  be  a  little  higher 
than  the  beasts. 

Nothing  quite  like  the  domestic  life  of  the 
White  House  under  the  present  administration 
has  been  witnessed  before  in  our  generation. 
Both  the  President  and  Mrs.  Roosevelt  are  fond 
of  their  kind.  The  gratification  of  their  social 
instinct  takes  the  form  of  making  their  home  a 
meeting-ground  for  persons  both  interesting  and 
interested.  The  conventional  bounds  of  so- 
called  "society"  are  unknown  to  them  when 
it  comes  to  bringing  such  persons  together. 
Men  and  women  with  live  qualities,  those 
who  have  done  or  are  doing  some  good  work 
in  the  world,  are  their  favorite  guests.  It 
may  be  to-day  a  clergyman  whose  pulpit  fills 
the  smallest  place  in  his  ambition  and  his 
"neighborhood  club"  the  largest;  to-morrow  a 
labor  leader  whose  organization  has  made  itself 
respected  not  only  by  its  fair  treatment  of  the 

318 


WHITE   HOUSE   HOSPITALITY 

employer  class  but  by  its  admirable  discipline 
within  its  own  membership ;  the  next  day  a  pn> 
fessional  musician,  or  an  explorer  who  has 
brought  to  light  something  that  escaped  all  his 
predecessors  in  the  same  field,  or  the  author  of 
an  epoch-making  book. 

All  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  in  short, 
gather  at  the  President's  round  table  of  de 
mocracy.  The  social  censors  are  becomingly 
shocked,  of  course.  They  can  not  but  think  that 
it  cheapens  the  atmosphere  of  the  first  home 
in  the  land  to  bring  so  many  persons  into  it,  on 
a  footing  of  equality,  who  are  not  familiar 
with  the  drawing-room  code.  They  forget  that 
achievement  creates  an  aristocracy  of  its  own, 
and  that  work  for  the  world  is  the  best  breeding 
a  man  can  enjoy,  since  it  stimulates  in  him  those 
traits  of  sincerity  and  self-forgetfulness  which 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  good  manners. 

Of  the  great  receptions  and  state  dinners  it 
is  needless  to  speak,  as  this  class  of  functions 
varies  from  administration  to  administration 
only  with  the  personalities  of  the  men  and 
women  who  attend  them.  The  Roosevelts  have 
improved  upon  precedent,  it  is  true,  by  re 
ducing  the  "crushes"  to  endurable  proportions 
and  trying  to  make  the  political  dinners  a  little 
22  319 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


less  dreary.  They  have  also  introduced  two 
novelties — the  periodical  musicale  in  winter, 
and  the  garden-party  in  the  season  of  green  grass 
and  flowers.  The  distinctive  social  feature  of 
the  administration  is  found  in  the  private  life 
of  the  Roosevelts.  The  hospitalities  they  dis 
pense  there  are  as  unpretentious  as  their  guests. 
This  enables  them  to  "keep  open  house"  all  the 
time.  Simple  little  dinners,  confined  to  a  half- 
dozen  friends,  are  their  favorite  entertainments. 
Enough  formality  is  observed  in  the  invitations 
to  enable  the  persons  invited  to  accommodate 
their  other  engagements  to  these,  but  that  is  all, 
and  the  notice  may  be  very  short. 

Luncheon  is  informal  in  every  respect,  in 
cluding  invitations.  A  morning  caller  who 
does  not  get  through  his  talk  may  be  invited  on 
the  spot  to  come  back  at  half  past  one,  and  an 
order  sent  to  the  steward  to  lay  an  additional 
plate.  A  telephone  message,  out  of  a  clear  sky 
as  it  were,  may  summon  another  guest,  if  the 
President  happens  to  think  suddenly  of  some 
one  with  whom  he  wishes  to  have  a  few  min 
utes'  chat  away  from  the  official  environment. 
Scarcely  a  Cabinet  day  goes  by  without  one  or 
more  members  staying  after  the  morning  meet 
ing  to  lunch  with  the  President. 

320 


PRIVATE  FINANCES 


Nothing  like  this  absolutely  unconventional 
freedom  has  been  known  since  the  civil  war 
raised  the  scale  of  living  in  the  White  House  as 
everywhere  else.  If  all  his  unofficial  entertain 
ing  were  not  done  in  the  most  modest  fashion, 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  purse  could  not  stand  the  drain, 
for  in  spite  of  the  general  impression  otherwise, 
he  is  not  a  rich  man  and  never  was.  His  private 
means  are  an  inheritance  from  his  father.  The 
father  was  a  very  well-to-do  citizen  for  his  day, 
but  his  day  was  one  of  smaller  things,  and  his 
estate  had  to  be  divided  between  five  children. 

Theodore,  who  had  no  start  in  the  world  but 
this,  was  not  built  for  a  money-maker.  All  his 
occupations  have  been  such  as  consumed  his  sub 
stance,  and  he  has  always  refused  to  recoup  his 
expenditures  by  anything  that  savored  of  specu 
lation.  To  have  done  that  would  have  violated 
a  general  scruple  he  entertains  against  gam 
bling.  It  might  also  have  involved  him,  with 
however  innocent  intent,  in  enterprises  liable  to 
be  helped  or  embarrassed  by  his  action  as  a 
public  officer.  As  it  is,  he  is  one  of  the  few  men 
in  American  political  life  who  have  been  for 
twenty  years  unceasingly  in  the  public  eye, 
against  whom  not  even  a  hint  has  been  thrown 
out  on  this  score. 

321 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


But  for  the  constant  demand  the  publishers 
have  made  upon  him  he  would  have  been  in 
financial  discomfort  more  than  once;  and  this 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  in  dress,  house-rent, 
and  other  necessary  objects  of  expenditure,  his 
family  have  never  practised  any  more  extrava 
gance  than  in  matters  of  pure  luxury.  Their 
habit  has  been  to  have  that  which  was  required 
by  the  passing  conditions  of  their  life,  and  as 
good  of  its  kind  as  they  could  afford,  and  stop 
there;  and  they  have  carried  into  the  White 
House  the  same  generous  but  quiet  manner  of 
living  which  characterized  them  outside. 

Stories  told  about  the  President  for  the  sake 
of  making  some  particular  trait  conspicuous, 
often  overshoot  the  mark.  Not  a  few  of  these 
deal  with  him  on  his  religious  side.  A  clergy 
man,  for  example,  is  quoted  as  telling  how  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  in  the  full  bloom  of  his  early  man 
hood,  left  the  Protestant  Episcopal  communion 
"because  he  had  tired  of  its  inanities,"  and  was 
"attracted  into  the  Reformed  [Dutch]  church 
by  its  robust  virility."  This  narrative  is  inter 
esting,  but  it  lacks  certain  essentials  of  veracious 
history:  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  not  have  quitted  a 
church  with  which  he  never  was  connected,  nor 
could  he  have  left  it  to  enter  a  church  of  which 

322 


UNIVERSAL   CHRISTIANITY 

he  was  already  a  member.  The  records  show 
that  he  joined  the  Middle  Collegiate  church,  in 
Second  Avenue  near  Seventh  Street,  New  York 
City,  on  December  2,  1874,  when  he  was  six 
teen  years  old,  and  never  withdrew  from  that 
connection.  His  father  and  grandfather  were 
members  of  the  same  church,  so  that  in  a  sense 
he  may  be  considered  to  have  been  born  into  it. 

Mrs.  Roosevelt  was  brought  up  a  Protestant 
Episcopalian,  and  at  various  times  in  their  mar 
ried  life,  while  moving  from  place  to  place,  they 
have  attended  Sunday  services  together.  Since 
their  last  advent  in  Washington  they  have  di 
vided,  the  President  going  to  a  Reformed 
church  in  Fifteenth  Street,  about  ten  minutes' 
walk  from  the  White  House,  and  Mrs.  Roose 
velt  to  old  St.  John's,  just  across  Lafayette 
Square.  Some  of  the  children  accompany  one 
parent  and  some  the  other. 

Although  the  clergyman  quoted  went  a  good 
way  astray  on  his  facts,  the  idea  he  was  trying 
to  bring  out  was  correct,  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  is 
contemptuous  of  mere  formalism  in  religion  as 
everywhere  else.  With  ecclesiastical  polemics 
he  has  as  little  patience  as  with  cant.  His  name 
belongs  somewhere  in  Abou  Ben  Adhem's  list, 
with  those  whose  first  thought  is  practical  hu- 

323 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


manity;  and  by  this  standard  he  measures  the 
religious  quality  in  others.  It  makes  absolutely 
no  difference  to  him  whether  the  men  with 
whom  he  has  to  do  are  Jews  or  Gentiles,  Catho 
lics  or  Protestants,  Christians,  Deists  or  Agnos 
tics,  as  long  as  they  live  up  to  the  best  that  is  in 
them:  he  is  with  them  then  in  spirit,  whatever 
form  or  absence  of  form  may  distinguish  their 
worship.  He  has  no  use  for  the  devotee  who 
praises  God  in  the  abstract  and  neglects  his  fel 
low  man  in  the  concrete.  He  professes  Chris 
tianity  himself,  as  he  professes  Republicanism, 
not  because  it  is  the  only  faith  that  draws  good 
men  to  it,  but  because  it  contains  most  that  ap 
peals  to  him;  his  is  the  sort  of  Christianity  that 
embraces  whatever  is  best  in  all  religions,  and 
derives  its  vitality  from  its  moral  rather  than 
its  ritual  code. 


324 


CHAPTER   XIX 

CONCLUSION 

Unique  feature  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  career — Purpose  of  this  review 
— The  future. 

"IN  one  respect  the  career  of  Theodore  Roose 
velt  is  almost  unique  in  our  modern  public  life: 
the  American  people  have  watched  him  growJ 
Most  of  his  contemporaries  who  have  become 
powerful  and  famous  have  burst  upon  the  notice 
of  their  fellow  countrymen  within  a  very  short 
time  of  the  attainment  of  their  highest  ambi 
tions.  Lincoln  had  cut  but  a  small  figure  in 
Congress  before  his  nomination  for  President. 
Grant  was  earning  a  precarious  livelihood  in 
the  back  country  when  called  to  his  first  com 
mand  in  the  civil  war.  Cleveland  compassed 
the  whole  stride  from  mayor  of  an  interior  city 
to  President-elect  of  the  United  States  in  two 
years.  But  thousands  of  citizens  in  remote 
quarters  of  the  Union  had  heard,  as  long  ago  as 
1883,  of  that  curio  in  rough-and-tumble  politics: 

325 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


the  young  "dude  lawmaker"  at  Albany  whose 
speeches  were  verbal  cataracts  bursting  through 
clenched  teeth,  who  hunted  jobbery  in  term- 
time  and  grizzly  bears  in  recess,  and  who  was 
not  too  good  or  nice  to  hobnob  with  his  col 
leagues  of  all  classes. 

They  had  their  interest  quickened  when  they 
saw  this  extraordinary  youngster  of  twenty-six 
heading  his  State  delegation  to  the  Republican 
national  convention  at  Chicago,  to  resist  in  vain 
the  nomination  of  Elaine  for  President.  They 
recognized  in  him  the  true  popular  leader  when 
he  coined  for  the  Erie  Railroad  ring  and  their 
corrupt  coparceners  the  title,  "the  wealthy  crim 
inal  classes."  They  saw  him  come  to  the  front 
in  national  affairs  when  as  Civil  Service  Com 
missioner,  the  war-club  of  reform  in  hand,  he 
dealt  blow  after  blow  on  the  heads  of  bigger 
men  till  he  had  made  them  respect  the  Commis 
sion  and  bow  to  its  authority.  They  saw  him 
later  bring  order  into  a  chaotic  naval  establish 
ment,  and  prepare  it  for  instant  service  in  a  war 
which  was  to  restore  its  old  prestige.  They 
read  of  the  Rough  Riders'  campaign,  and 
abated  none  of  their  liking  for  its  author  be 
cause,  in  his  youthful  enthusiasm,  he  felt  as  if 
the  whole  conquest  of  Cuba  had  been  the 

326 


A  NATIONAL  FIGURE 


achievement  of  his  regiment.  They  smiled  a 
little  at  the  whirlwind  of  felt  hats  and  khaki 
breeches  that  swept  over  New  York  in  the  guise 
of  a  canvass  for  the  Governorship,  but  were  not 
sorry  when  the  settling  dust  revealed  the  young 
soldier  seated  in  the  executive  chair.  Then 
came  the  unparalleled  scenes  at  Philadelphia 
ending  in  his  nomination  for  the  Vice-Presi 
dency,  and  his  novel  methods,  after  election,  as 
steersman  of  the  Senate's  deliberations. 

This  series  of  events  was  but  a  long-drawn 
prelude  to  the  drama  of  an  administration  quite 
as  individual  in  its  way  as  any  of  the  traits  of 
the  picturesque  figure  at  the  head  of  it.  It  had 
prepared  the  people  to  know  the  man  as  no 
other  President  had  been  known.  They  felt 
almost  as  if  they  had  been  his  neighbors  from 
his  childhood  up.  Though  to  his  actual  inti 
mates  he  was  always  Theodore,  to  the  great 
mass  of  the  populace  he  was  "Teddy" — the  boy 
who  had  developed  under  their  own  eyes  from 
a  precocious  beginner  to  a  well-rounded  man 
of  affairs. 

It  can  not  truthfully  be  said  that  such  famil 
iarity  is  always  of  advantage  to  its  object.  The 
babe  whose  birth  we  recall  never  quite  matures 
in  our  imagination.  Any  mistake  of  judgment 

327 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


he  commits  at  forty-five  we  are  apt  to  attribute 
to  his  general  mental  unripeness,  almost  as  we 
did  the  follies  of  his  infancy.  Theodore  Roose 
velt  is  in  double  danger  of  suffering  injustice  in 
this  way,  because  his  natural  exuberance  of 
manner  intensifies  the  illusion  of  his  youthful- 
ness.  He  is  now  really  past  the  age  which  sci 
ence  has  fixed  as  the  meridian  of  the  human 
powers,  yet  in  the  popular  fancy  he  is  still,  and 
probably  will  always  remain,  the  breezy  lad  of 
the  early  nineties. 

Nevertheless,  his  growth  has  been  real.  He 
is  a  larger  and  broader  man  than  he  was  when 
he  began  his  Presidency.  He  was  then  labor 
ing  under  a  sense  of  the  tremendous  responsi 
bility  so  suddenly  thrust  upon  him,  and  the 
sobering  effect  of  that  experience  added  ten 
years  to  his  maturity  in  as  many  days.  Every 
succeeding  twelvemonth  has  carried  him  fur 
ther  in  the  same  direction.  He  has  made  his 
mistakes ;  he  will  make  more  of  them,  unless  he 
ceases  to  be  human — which  for  his  sake  and  ours 
alike  may  Heaven  forfend,  since  his  red-blooded 
humanity  is  what  makes  him  lovable  with  all 
his  faults. 

Calmly  reviewing  his  career,  the  nation  has 
cause  to  be  devoutly  thankful  that  he  came  to 

328 


SOBERING   REALITIES 


its  highest  office  over  so  terrible  a  road.  The 
cloud  of  sorrow  and  shame  that  hung  over  the 
whole  country  was  bound  to  be  impressive  in 
itself,  but  its  effect  on  him  was  deepened  by  the 
realization  that  he  had  simply  succeeded  to  a 
trust,  to  carry  to  completion  the  policies  mapped 
out  by  his  predecessor.  This  curbed  the  im 
petuous  impulses  which  might  have  wrecked  his 
administration  had  he  originally  entered  the 
White  House  by  virtue  of  a  popular  majority 
in  his  own  right.  The  interval  preceding  his 
appearance  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
itself  has  been  sufficient  to  cool  his  first  ardor 
and  readjust  his  point  of  view  on  many  matters 
of  grave  public  concern.  As  a  man  of  con 
science  and  conviction,  he  doubtless  would  have 
got  himself  under  some  restraint  in  any  event, 
but  perhaps  in  no  other  circumstances  under  so 
much. 

My  task  is  almost  finished.  The  reader  was 
duly  warned  in  its  preface  that  it  was  not  to  be 
a  biography.  It  is  not  even  a  well-balanced  and 
fully  colored  portrait.  I  have  aimed  merely  to 
give  Americans  of  the  rank  and  file  a  little  more 
vivid  impression  of  the  American  at  the  front. 
Albeit  the  people  have  watched  the  develop 
ment  of  his  career  from  the  start,  most  of  them 

329 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


have  remained  necessarily  at  a  distance.  I  have 
tried  to  bring  them  closer  to  him,  so  that,  with 
out  losing  their  perspective  view  of  the  leader, 
they  could  see  more  of  the  man. 

For  every  one  touch  of  nature  that  I  have 
tried  to  put  into  the  picture  I  have  had  to  leave 
a  dozen  out.  For  instance,  while  I  have  made 
no  attempt  to  minimize  Mr.  Roosevelt's  mis 
takes,  I  might  have  gone  further  and  shown  how 
carefully  he  avoids  making  the  same  mistake 
twice.  I  have  alluded  to  his  versatility;  but  I 
did  not  mention  the  time  I  found  him,  while 
waiting  for  an  important  conference,  refresh 
ing  his  mind  for  a  few  minutes  with  an  Italian 
text  of  Dante  in  one  hand  and  Carlyle's  transla 
tion  in  the  other.  I  have  spoken  of  his  con 
tempt  for  mere  formalism;  but  I  might  have 
added  that,  though  insisting  upon  all  the  respect 
due  to  the  Presidential  office  as  much  when  he 
as  when  another  fills  it,  he  has  never  yet  become 
accustomed  to  taking  precedence  of  Mrs.  Roose 
velt  or  to  going  through  a  door  before  any 
woman. 

The  stories  printed  about  him  are  as  the 
sands  of  the  sea  for  multitude,  and  perhaps 
equally  trustworthy  as  a  foundation  to  build  on. 
Sometimes  their  fault  lies  deep  in  their  own  con- 

330 


AMUSING  FICTIONS 


stitution.  A  French  journalist  who  had  been 
traveling  in  the  United  States  wrote  for  his  dear 
public  in  Paris  an  account  of  a  luncheon  to 
which  he  was  invited  at  the  White  House,  and 
described  the  adjournment  of  the  host  and  the 
male  guests  afterward  to  one  of  the  parlors. 
The  President,  he  said,  was  in  the  midst  of  his 
cigar  and  engaged  in  telling  a  good  story,  when 
one  of  the  liveried  lackeys  reminded  him  that 
smoking  was  not  allowed  in  that  room.  So  the 
whole  party  was  compelled  to  remove  to  a  cor 
ridor,  where  the  President,  though  meekly 
obedient,  held  forth  with  much  eloquence  on 
the  nuisance  of  a  system  which  gave  the  servants 
of  the  executive  mansion  so  much  authority  over 
its  official  occupant.  I  regret  to  say  that  this 
entertaining  narrative  was  widely  copied,  with 
the  insignia  of  belief,  in  the  American  press. 
Its  percentage  of  truth  each  reader  may  calcu 
late  for  himself,  by  bearing  in  mind  that  the 
White  House  has  no  liveried  lackeys,  and  that 
the  President  never  has  used  tobacco  in  his  life. 
And  yet  this  is  as  near  as  most  of  the  stories  get 
to  the  truth. 

Sometimes  these  tales  are  only  half  told,  and 
it  is  usually  the  better  half  that  is  missing. 
When  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  Vice-President  he 

33i 


THE  MAN   ROOSEVELT 


violated  all  precedent  by  appointing  a  colored 
man  a  messenger  in  the  Senate.  The  fact  was 
published  from  Maine  to  California,  but  not 
the  reason,  which  was  far  more  interesting. 
This  man  he  had  found  at  Albany,  a  messenger 
in  the  Governor's  office,  holding  over  from  the 
days  of  Roswell  P.  Flower.  A  boy  baby  was 
born  to  the  messenger.  Had  he  been  a  syco 
phant  or  a  time-server,  he  would  have  remem 
bered  that  Mr.  Flower  was  a  Democrat  and  had 
ceased  to  be  useful  as  a  patron,  while  Mr.  Roose 
velt  was  a  Republican  with  possible  favors  to 
bestow ;  but  in  defiance  of  the  dictates  of  policy, 
he  named  the  child  in  honor  of  Mr.  Flower  and 
frankly  told  Mr.  Roosevelt  that  he  had  done 
this  because  Mr.  Flower  had  been  good  to  him. 
He  had  little  suspicion  of  the  impression  that 
trifling  incident  made  upon  the  mind  of  his  new 
chief,  with  whom  loyalty  stands  forth  as  the  first 
among  virtues.  From  that  day  the  negro  be 
came  a  fixture  with  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who  brought 
him  from  Albany  to  Washington  the  instant  a 
place  could  be  found  to  put  him  into. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  has  been  represented  as  pretty 
nearly  everything  he  is  not:  as  "bidding  for  the 
labor  vote"  because  the  door  of  the  White  House 
now  swings  open  as  freely  to  the  man  who  works 

332 


STANDARD  OF  JUDGMENT 

with  his  hands  as  to  the  man  who  works  with 
his  head;  as  the  foe  of  capital,  because  he  has 
demanded  that  the  rich  shall  obey  the  law  as 
well  as  the  poor;  as  a  negro-worshiper,  because 
he  has  insisted  that  a  black  skin  covers  the  same 
body  of  human  rights  as  a  white  one;  as  the 
slave  of  a  political  machine,  because,  instead  of 
destroying  an  agency  which  his  next  successor 
would  only  restore,  he  has  tried  to  turn  it  to  some 
purpose  not  unworthy;  as  a  rash  and  hare 
brained  youth,  because  he  does  what  other  men 
are  thinking. 

In  my  endeavor  to  dispel  some  of  these  arbi 
trary  misconceptions,  I  have  aimed  not  to  argue 
his  cause,  but  simply  to  present  as  honest  a  sketch 
as  I  could  of  the  Theodore  Roosevelt  I  have 
known.  In  the  end  we  must  judge  him  by  the 
use  he  has  made  of  his  own  talents  in  the  light 
of  his  own  moral  promptings,  and  this  requires 
that  we  shall  have  before  us  an  actuality,  not  an 
ideal;  a  living  being,  not  a  mere  mental  image 
conjured  up  by  the  politicians  or  by  the  capital 
ists  or  by  the  demagogues;  a  portrait,  not  of  the 
man  as  he  might  have  been,  or  of  the  man  as  we 
might  have  liked  to  find  him,  or  of  the  man  we 
think  we  should  have  been  in  his  place,  but  of 
the  man  as  he  is.  Of  that  man — the  real  Man 

333 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Roosevelt — each  reader  must  form  his  individ 
ual  estimate. 

Almost  as  I  am  writing  these  last  lines  in  a 
book  which  has  been  in  the  best  sense  a  labor  of 
love,  the  peace  of  the  night  is  broken  by  the 
screech  of  steam  whistles,  the  blare  of  horns,  and 
the  clang  of  many  bells,  while  the  deep-voiced 
clock  in  a  neighboring  room  strikes  the  hour  of 
twelve.  The  din  outside  is  the  city's  welcome 
to  a  year  just  born. 

We  do  these  things  oddly.  Our  solemn 
times  are  those  we  greet  with  deafening  clamor. 
Before  this  new  year  follows  the  old  into  the 
silent  halls  of  history,  we  shall  go  through  an 
other  period  of  uproar.  Amid  bursting  bombs, 
the  roll  of  drums,  the  hiss  of  rockets  and  the 
crash  of  military  bands,  the  citizens  of  our  re 
public  will  be  called  to  the  most  sacred  duty 
that  devolves  on  a  free  people — the  choice  of  a 
servant  who  shall  be  also  their  chief  ruler. 

Upon  whom  will  the  honor  fall?  What 
form  will  it  take?  Will  it  be  a  summons  to  an 
untried  hand,  or  a  verdict  of  "Well  done"? 


334 


INDEX 


Addicks,  J.  Edward,  146. 
Agassiz,  Alexander,  145. 
Ahhvardt,  Dr.  Hermann, 

284. 
Alaska  boundary  commission, 

206. 

Alger,  Russell  A.,  201. 
Alice,  J.  Frank,  152. 
Arbitration,  coal  strike,  169, 

236,    241,     274;     Hague 

Tribunal  of,  205. 
Aristocracy  of   achievement, 

319- 
Author's  preface,  v. 

Bacon,  Robert,  127. 
Bacon,  Theodore,  27. 
Beirut,  squadron  sent  to,  12. 
"Best  he  could,  the,"  103. 
Bid  well,  George  R.,  76,  129, 

275. 

Blaine,  James  G.,  17,  33. 

•Sliss,  Cornelius  N.,  201. 

Bosses,  political,  in  the  Uni 
ted  States  Senate,  125, 
136;  on  their  better  side, 
144. 

Bowen,  Herbert  W.,  208. 

Bristow,  Joseph  L.,  100. 

Bryan,  William  J.,  165. 

Burton,  Joseph  R.,   136. 

Byrne,  William  M.,  147. 
23 


Cabinet,  President  Roosevelt 

and  his,  71,  83. 
Capital  and  labor,  232. 
Carnegie,  Andrew,  255. 
Census      spoilsmen's      trick, 

180. 

Cervera's  squadron,  200. 

Chastity,  admonition  to,  317. 

Children,  romping  with,  314. 

Chronology  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt's  career,  ix. 

Civil  Service  Commission 
and  Congress,  38,  116; 
Commission's  new  policy, 
35 ;  examinations  for  in 
spectors  of  customs,  50; 
examinations  for  New 
York  police,  44;  Southern 
quotas  filled,  36. 

Clarendon  Hall  meeting, 
247. 

Clark,  E.  E.,  246. 

Clarkson,  James  S.,  42,  131. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  20,  120, 
1 66,  169. 

Colonies,  theory  of,  265. 

Commerce,  Department  of, 
81,  254. 

Congress  and  the  Civil  Serv 
ice  Commission,  38,  116. 

Contents,  table  of,  xi. 

Corbin,  Henry  C.,  296. 


335 


THE  MAN  ROOSEVELT 


Cortelyou,  George  B.,  81. 

Cox,  George  B.,  136. 

Criticism,  offensive  and  in 
offensive,  308. 

Crum,  William  D.,  225. 

Cuban  reciprocity,  102. 

Customs  inspectors,  civil- 
service  examinations  for, 
50. 

Daniels,  Benjamin  F.,  66. 
Day,  William  R.,  172. 
Delaware  politics,  102,  147. 
Dewey,  George,  204. 
Disappointments  turned  into 

success,  4. 
"Doddling"  defined,  296. 

Eaton,  Dorman  B.,  33. 

Edmunds,  George  F.,  17, 
56,  178. 

Election  of  1904,  approach 
ing,  335- 

Evans,  Henry  Clay,  275. 

Exercise,  robust,  198,  311. 

Fitchie,  Thomas,  133. 
Five-cent-fare  veto,   166. 
"Flag  shall  'stay  put,'  "  269. 
Flower,  Roswell  P.,  332. 
Foraker,  Joseph  B.,  136. 
Franchise   tax  legislation   in 

New  York,  278. 
Free-Trade    Club    in    New 

York,  257. 

Gage,  Lyman  J.,  73,  83,  129, 

201. 

"Going  ahead,"  7. 
Gorman,  Arthur  P.,  40,  145, 

165. 


Government  Printing  Office, 
civil-service  reform  in,  234. 
Gray,  George,  166,  169. 
Greene,  Francis  V.,  125. 

Hanna,     Marcus    A.,     136, 

158,  174- 

Hendricks,  Francis,  124. 
Hess,  Jacob,  178. 
Hicks,  William  H.,  137. 
Hill,  David  B.,  165. 
"Horses,  not  rabbits,"  310. 
Hunting,  love  of,  197. 

Illustrations,  list  of,  xix. 

Immigration  Office  contro 
versy,  133. 

Imperialism,  250,  263. 

Impulse,  a  creature  of,  272. 

Independents,  first  break 
with  the,  16;  second  break 
with  the,  25. 

Indianola  post-office  case,  94, 
229. 

Jenkins,  Micah,  225. 

Jew  -  baiting  campaign 
checked,  284. 

Jewish  protest  to  the  Czar, 
209. 

Jones,  Thomas  G.,  224. 

Judges  in  New  York  re 
buked,  190. 

Kishenev  massacre,  208. 
Knox,  Philander  C,  81. 

Labor  and  capital,  232. 
"Larger  good,"  the,  103. 
Lee,  Robert  C.,  224. 


336 


INDEX 


Letter,  unpublished,  of  1898, 

30. 
Liquor-selling     on     Sunday, 

in,  1 86;  to  minors,  112. 
Literary  enterprises,  302. 
Lodge,    Henry    Cabot,    53, 

133- 

Long,  John  D.,79,  201,  203. 
Low,  Seth,  128,  139. 
Loyalty     appreciated,      161, 

33?-. 

Lying,  accusations  of,   191. 
Lyons,  Judsoxi  W.,  161. 

Maclay,  Edgar  Stanton,  297. 
Manning,  Daniel,  145. 
McClain,  Penrose  A.,   137. 
McCoach,  William,  138. 
McKinley,  William,  72,  73, 

197,  201. 

McMichael,  Clayton,    137. 
McSvveeney,      Edward      F., 

133- 

Miles,  Nelson  A.,  296. 
Miller,  Warner,  179. 
Miller,  William  A.,  235. 
Mitchell,  John,  169. 
Monroe  doctrine,  209. 
Moody,  William  H.,  80. 
Murray,  Joseph  E.,  58,  135- 

Navy,  buying  coalers  for 
the,  107 ;  prepared  for 
war,  298. 

Negro  question,  94,  213. 

Newspaper     reading,     rapid, 

307- 

New  York,  Assistant  Treas 
urer  at,  127;  governorship, 
5,  28,  123,  278;  mayor 


alty  campaign  of  1886,  4, 
1 68 ;  mayoralty  campaign 
of  1901,  139;  police,  5, 
44,  49,  63,  in,  182,  189, 
247,  249,  284. 

Nields,  John  P.,  154. 

Northern  Securities  Com 
pany,  250. 

Officeholders      in      politics, 

138. 
Ohio  Republican  Convention 

indorsement,  163. 
Olney,  Richard,  165. 
Oxnard,  Henry  T.,  105. 

Panama,  recognition  of  Re 
public  of,  7. 

Pardon  papers  characteris 
tically  indorsed,  287. 

Partridge,  John  N.,  125. 

Payn,  Louis  F.,   125. 

Payne,    Henry    C,    83,    92, 

H9,  151- 

Peking  expedition  of  1900, 
205. 

Penrose,  Boies,  137. 

Pets  in  the  Roosevelt  family, 
197. 

Philippine  Islands,  204,  263. 

Platt,  Thomas  C.,  23,  120, 
123,  136,  145. 

Plimley,  William,  127. 

Police  administration  in  New 
York  charged  with  ineffi 
ciency,  189;  and  the  civil 
service,  44;  good  work  by, 
49,  249;  night  visits  to, 
182. 

Postal  scandals,  96. 


337 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


Powderly,  Terence  V.,  133. 
Preface,  author's,  v. 
Presidency,     aspiration     for 

second  term  of,  155. 
Presidential      campaign      of 

1884,     1 6,    56,     178;    of 

1898,   22;  of    1904,    155, 

326. 

Quarrels  in  army  and  navy, 

296. 
Quay,     Matthew    S.,     135, 

137,  145- 

Race  suicide,  316. 

Reed,  Thomas  B.,  291. 

Religious  faith  and  practise, 
322. 

Riis,  Jacob  A.,  63. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  chro 
nology  of  career,  ix;  an 
tithetical  traits,  3 ;  secret 
of  success,  1 5 ;  reasons  for 
remaining  a  Republican, 
20,  26;  Governor  of  New 
York,  5,  28,  123,  278; 
Civil-Service  Commission 
er,  33,  58,  115,  192;  Po 
lice  Commissioner,  44,  63, 
in,  182,  247,  284;  classes 
of  friends,  54;  relations 
with  Cabinet,  71,  83;  im 
patience  with  red  tape,  73, 
296,  300;  action  in  Indi- 
anola  case,  95 ;  and  the 
postal  scandals,  98,  100; 
and  Delaware  politics, 
IO2,  146;  "the  larger 
good"  and  "the  best  he 


could,"  103 ;  Assistant 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  5, 
107,  200,  298;  buying 
coalers  for  the  navy,  107; 
enforcement  of  Sunday 
law  in  New  York,  1 1 1 ; 
selling  liquor  to  minors, 
112;  Shidy  case,  116;  re 
lations  with  Senatorial 
bosses,  120;  breakfast  with 
Platt,  123;  appointments 
made  as  Governor,  124; 
Assistant  Treasurership  at 
New  York,  127 ;  New  York 
Custom  -  House  changes, 
129;  settling  an  Immigra 
tion  Service  quarrel,  133; 
experiences  with  the  Quay 
machine,  137;  disposing  of 
warring  bosses,  1 42 ;  trou 
ble  with  J.  E.  Addicks, 
146;  and  William  M. 
Byrne,  148;  conclusion  in 
the  Todd  case,  153;  sec 
ond-term  aspirations,  155; 
withdrawal  of  rivals,  158; 
and  the  Hanna  "boom," 
158;  appreciation  of  loy 
alty,  161,  332;  indorse 
ment  by  Ohio  convention, 
164,  174;  relations  with 
Democratic  candidates, 
1 65 ;  speech  on  the  five- 
cent-fare  veto,  1 66;  defeat 
for  mayoralty,  1 68  ;  organ 
izing  the  coal-strike  arbi 
tration,  169;  fighting 
methods,  176;  love  of 
sparring,  177;  and  the 
Utica  convention  of  1884, 


338 


INDEX 


178;  outwitting  the  cen 
sus  spoilsmen,  180;  max 
im  about  tne  short  sword, 
182;  playing  Harun-al- 
Raschid  with  the  police, 
1 82 ;  review  of  anti-Roose 
velt  parade,  186;  hitting 
back  at  an  accusing  news 
paper,  189;  rebuke  to  ju 
diciary,  190;  favorite  re 
tort,  191 ;  and  the  lying 
Cabinet  officer,  192;  not 
a  lover  of  wanton  war, 
194;  habits  in  hunting, 
sports,  and  exercise,  198; 
expectation  of  war  with 
Spain,  199;  plan  for  in 
tercepting  Cervera's  squad 
ron,  200;  address  to  Mc- 
Kinley  Cabinet,  202 ;  au 
thor  of  fateful  order  to 
Dewey,  204;  ambition  for 
United  States  as  a  world 
power,  205,  21 1 ;  theories 
of  international  arbitra 
tion,  205 ;  triumph  of 
Alaskan  policy,  206;  atti 
tude  toward  Venezuela, 
206;  version  of  Monroe 
doctrine,  208;  and  the 
Kishenev  incident,  208  ; 
plans  for  the  South  and  the 
negro,  213;  independent 
appointments,  215,  21 7; 
entertains  Booker  T. 
Washington,  217;  assailed 
in  the  South,  221  ;  visits 
to  Tennessee.  South  Caro 
lina,  and  Mississippi,  224, 
225;  appointment  of  Col 


lector  Crum,  225;  answer 
to  Charleston  critics,  228  ; 
inconsistent  treatment  by 
Southern  whites,  230 ; 
called  a  demagogue,  232; 
belief  in  organization  cf 
labor,  233 ;  and  the  Miller 
case,  235 ;  and  the  Arizona 
miners'  riots,  241 ;  and 
the  anthracite  coal  strike, 
241 ;  meeting  with  strikers 
at  Clarendon  Hall,  247 ; 
treatment  of  trusts,  250; 
and  the  Carnegie  founda 
tion,  255 ;  former  member 
ship  of  Free-Trade  Club, 
257;  views  on  the  tariff, 
259;  attitude  toward  re 
vision,  263 ;  Philippine 
policy,  263 ;  opinion  of 
colonies,  265 ;  speech  to 
Sons  of  American  Revolu 
tion,  269;  accused  of  im 
pulsiveness,  272 ;  rescue  of 
a  horse,  273  ;  rapidity  of 
action  on  coal  strike,  274 ; 
premature  announcement 
of  purposes,  275  ;  tricks  of 
speech,  276;  franchise  tax 
policy,  278;  and  the  Ahl- 
wardt  episode,  2^4;  in 
dorsing  a  scoundrel's  par 
don  papers,  287 ;  a  man  of 
many  parts,  200;  fondness 
for  natural  history,  291 ; 
equilibrium  of  opinions, 
292 ;  superlative  style, 
294;  judgment  of  men, 
295;  dislike  of  "dod- 
dling,"  296;  breaking  up 


339 


THE   MAN   ROOSEVELT 


feuds,  296;  preparing  the 
navy  for  war,  298;  as  an 
author,  301 ;  specimen  of 
handwriting,  302 ;  meth 
ods  of  composition,  304; 
book  reviewing,  306 ;  man 
ner  of  reading  newspapers, 
307  ;  attitude  toward  criti 
cism,  308;  habits  of  exer 
cise,  310;  tribute  to  Mrs. 
Roosevelt,  313;  romping 
with  the  children,  314; 
letter  on  race  suicide,  316; 
personal  morals,  317;  do 
mestic  and  social  life,  313, 
318;  private  means,  321; 
religious  affiliations,  322 ; 
growth  watched  by  the 
people,  325 ;  perils  of  boy 
ishness,  327 ;  occupations 
of  spare  moments,  330; 
fictions  about,  330;  in  the 
coming  campaign,  335 ; 
what  of  the  future?  335. 
Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Theodore, 

194,    221,    313,    318. 

Root,  Elihu,  80,  128,  170. 
Rough  Riders,  61,  65. 
Roulhac,  Thomas  R.,  224. 

Sampson,  William  T.,  296. 

Sargent,  Frank  P.,  134. 

Schley,  Wmfield  S.,  206. 

Senate,  bossism  in  United 
States,  125,  136. 

Shaw,  Leslie  M.,  83. 

Sheldon,  George  R.,  127. 

Shidy,  Hamilton  W.,  116. 

Silver  free  coinage  propa 
ganda,  87. 


Smith,  Charles  Emory,  79, 
92. 

Social  life  at  the  White 
House,  318. 

"Sociologist"  defined,  245. 

Sons  of  American  Revolu 
tion,  269. 

Southern  policy,  213. 

Spain,  war  with,  5,  199,  204. 

Speculative  scandals  un 
known,  321. 

Speech,  tricks  of,  276. 

Sports,  manly,  197. 

Stranahan,    Nevada   N.,   76, 

^  130. 

Straus,  Oscar  S.,  146. 

Sunday  closing  in  New 
York,  in,  1 86. 

Superlative  style,  294. 

Sword,  maxim  about  the 
short,  182. 

Tariff  question  under  Roose 
velt  administration,  259. 
Thompson,  Hugh  S.,  119. 
Todd,  Huldah  B.,  151. 
Trusts,  regulation  of,  250. 

Unions,  trade,  233. 

United  States  as  a  world 
power,  205,  21 1 ;  Steel 
Corporation,  250,  255. 

Van  Vorst,  Mrs.  John,  316. 
Venezuela  troubles  of  1903, 

206,  707. 

Versatility,  marvel  of,  290. 
Vice-Presidency    of    United 

States,  6,  57,  33 1- 


340 


INDEX 


Wakeman,  Wilbur  F.,  129. 

War  and  peace,  193. 

Ware,  Eugene  F.,  275. 

Washington,  Booker  T., 
161,  217. 

"Wealthy  criminal  class," 
1 68. 

Wharton,  William  F.,  33. 

Whitehead,  George  W.,  131. 

White  House  entertain 
ments,  318. 


Williams,  William,  135. 
Wilson,  Edgar  S.,  224. 
Wimberley,     Augustus     T., 

275- 

Wood,  Leonard,  60. 
Wright,  Carroll  D.,  274. 
Wright,  Luke  E.,  224. 

Young,  Samuel  B.  M .,  62. 
Youthfulness,  perils  of,  327. 


(4) 


THE  END 


341 


BIOGRAPHY. 


The  Presidents  of  the  United  States, 

1789-1905.  By  JOHN  FISKE,  CARL  SCHURZ,  DANIEL  C. 
OILMAN,  WILLIAM  WALTER  PHELPS,  ROBERT  C.  WINTHROP, 
GEORGE  BANCROFT,  JOHN  HAY,  OWEN  WISTER,  and  Others. 
With  25  Steel  Portraits,  Facsimile  Letters,  and  other  Illus 
trations.  Edited  by  Gen.  JAMES  GRANT  WILSON.  One 
volume,  octavo.  Price  $3.50. 

It  has  been  said  that  history  is  simply  a  series  of  biographies. 
In  this  view  of  the  case  the  present  volume  must  be  admitted  to  be 
a  historical  work  of  great  importance  and  high  value,  presenting 
as  it  does  the  lives  of  all  our  chief  executives  down  to  the  present 
incumbent,  thus  covering  the  entire  field  of  American  history  for 
the  past  one  hundred  and  sixteen  years.  But  these  studies  have  a 
peculiar  charm  as  biographies,  because  the  study  of  each  occupant 
of  the  White  House  has  been  written  by  one  who  has  made  a 
special  study  of  him  and  his  times.  It  is  just  the  kind  of  book 
that  the  American  who  wishes  to  fix  in  his  mind  the  varying  phases 
of  his  country's  history  as  it  is  woven  on  the  warp  of  each  adminis 
tration  will  find  most  helpful.  The  names  of  the  foregoing  writers 
are  in  themselves  sufficient  to  guarantee  adequacy  of  treatment 
and  vivid  narration,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  such  a  succinct 
presentation  of  the  complete  portrait  gallery  of  our  Presidents, 
sketched  with  such  unquestioned  ability,  has  ever  before  been  pub 
lished.  Covering  as  it  does  the  entire  period  of  our  national  life, 
the  work  becomes  a  valuable  review  and  summary  of  the  history 
of  the  United  States. 

"  I  know  of  no  more  satisfactory  History  of  the  United  States  than 
General  Wilson's  attractive  illustrated  volume." — GROVER  CLEVELAND. 

44  These  biographies  of  our  Presidents,  written  by  distinguished 
scholars,  form  a  most  valuable  history  of  our  country.  The  excellent 
steel  engravings  and  vignettes  add  interest  to  the  handsome  octavo." 

— JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW     YORK. 


AN  AMERICAN  ADMIRAL. 


Forty-five  Years  Under  the  Flag. 

By  WINFIELD  SCOTT  SCHLEY,  Rear- Admiral,  U.  S.  N. 
Illustrated.  8vo.  Cloth,  uncut  edges,  and  gilt  top,  $3.00  net. 

About  one-third  of  Admiral  Schley's  volume  is  devoted  to  the  Spanish 
War,  in  which  he  became  so  great  a  figure.  He  tells  his  own  story  in 
simple  and  effective  words.  His  recollections  are  constantly  reinforced 
by  references  to  dispatches  and  other  documents. 

Readers  will  be  surprised  at  the  extent  of  Admiral  Schley's  experi 
ences.  He  left  the  Naval  Academy  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil 
War  and  saw  service  with  Farragut  in  the  Gulf.  Three  chapters  are 
devoted  to  Civil  War  events.  His  next  important  service  was  rendered 
during  the  opening  of  Corea  to  the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  the 
chapter  in  which  he  describes  the  storming  of  the  forts  is  one  of  thrilling 
interest.  Another  important  expedition  in  his  life  was  the  rescue  of 
Greely,  to  which  three  chapters  are  devoted.  Two  other  chapters  per 
tain  to  the  Revolution  in  Chili,  and  the  troubles  growing  out  of  the 
attack  upon  some  of  Admiral  Schley's  men  in  the  streets  of  Valparaiso. 

Altogether  the  book  contains  thirty-eight  chapters.  It  has  been  illus 
trated  from  material  furnished  by  Admiral  Schley  and  through  his  sug 
gestions,  and  makes  an  octavo  volume  of  large  size.  It  will  appeal  to 
every  true-hearted  American. 

The  author  says  in  his  preface  :  "  In  times  of  danger  and  duty  the  writer 
endeavored  to  do  the  work  set  before  him  without  fear  of  consequences.  With 
this  thought  in  mind,  he  has  felt  moved,  as  a  duty  to  his  wife,  his  children, 
and  his  name,  to  leave  a  record  of  his  long  professional  life,  which  has  not 
been  without  some  prestige,  at  least  for  the  flag  he  has  loved  and  under  which 
he  has  served  the  best  years  of  his  life.1' 

"  Rear- Admiral  W.  S.  Schley's  'Forty-five  Years  Under  the  Flag'  is  the 
most  valuable  contribution  to  the  history  of  the  American  Navy  that  has  been 
written  in  many  a  year." — New  York  Times. 

14  The  author's  career  is  well  worthy  of  a  book,  and  he  has  every  reason  for 
pride  in  telling  of  his  forty-five  active  years  in  all  parts  of  the  world." 

— Edwin  L.  Shuman  in  the  Chicago  Record-Herald, 

4 '  It  is  a  stirring  story,  told  with  the  simple  directness  of  a  sailor.  Its  read 
ing  carries  the  conviction  of  its  truthfulness.  The  Admiral  could  not  have 
hoped  to  accomplish  more." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  He  has  told  his  own  story,  in  his  own  way,  from  his  own  viewpoint,  and 
goes  after  his  detractors,  open  and  above  board,  with  his  big  guns." 

—  Washington  Post. 

"  It  is  a  work  that  will  interest  everyone,  from  the  sixteen-year-old  school 
boy  who  is  studying  history  and  loves  tales  of  stirring  adventure  to  the  grand- 
sire  whose  blood  still  pulses  hotly  with  patriotic  pride  at  the  recounting  of 
valiant  deeds  of  arms  under  our  starry  fag"— Boston  American 

"The  Admiral  tells  the  story  well.  His  is  a  manly  and  straightforward 
•tyle.  He  leaves  nothing  to  doubt,  nothing  open  to  controversy." 

— Baltimort  Sun. 

D.    APPLETON     AND    COMPANY,     NEW     YORK. 


VIVID,  MOVING,  SYMPATHETIC  HUMOROUS. 


A  Diary  from  Dixie. 

By  MARY  BOYKIN  CHESNUT.  Being  her  Diary  from 
November,  1861,  to  August,  1865.  Edited  by  Isabella  D. 
Martin  and  Myrta  Lockett  Avary.  Illustrated.  8vo.  Orna 
mental  Cloth,  $2.50  net;  postage  additional. 

Mrs.  Chesnut  was  the  most  brilliant  woman  that  the  South 
has  ever  produced,  and  the  charm  of  her  writing  is  such  as  to 
make  all  Southerners  proud  and  all  Northerners  envious.  She  was 
the  wife  of  James  Chesnut,  Jr.,  who  was  United  States  Senator 
from  South  Carolina  from  1859  to  1861,  and  acted  as  an  aid  to 
President  Jefferson  Davis,  and  was  subsequently  a  Brigadier-Gen 
eral  in  the  Confederate  Army.  Thus  it  was  that  she  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  all  the  foremost  men  in  the  Southern  cause. 

"  In  this  diary  is  preserved  the  most  moving  and  vivid  record  of  the  South 
ern  Confederacy  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge.  It  is  a  piece  of  social 
history  of  inestimable  value.  It  interprets  to  posterity  the  spirit  in  which  the 
Southerners  entered  upon  and  struggled  through  the  war  that  ruined  them. 
It  paints  poignantly  but  with  simplicity  the  wreck  of  that  old  world  which  had 
so  much  about  it  that  was  beautiful  and  noble  as  well  as  evil.  Stucenls  of 
American  life  have  often  smiled,  and  with  reason,  at  the  stilted  and  extrava 
gant  fashion  in  which  the  Southern  woman  had  been  described  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line — the  unconscious  self-revelations  of  Mary  Chesnut  explain, 
if  they  do  not  justify,  such  extravagance.  For  here,  we  cannot  but  be  ieve, 
is  a  creature  of  a  fine  type,  a  '  very  woman,'  a  very  Beatrice,  frank,  impetuous, 
loving,  full  of  sympathy,  full  of  humor.  Like  her  prototype,  she  had  preju 
dices,  and  she  knew  little  of  the  Northern  people  she  criticised  so  severely ; 
but  there  is  less  bitterness  in  the^e  pages  than  we  might  have  expected.  Per 
haps  the  editors  have  seen  to  that.  However  this  may  be  they  have  done 
nothing  to  injure  the  writer's  own  nervous,  unconventional  style— a  style 
breathing  character  and  temperament  as  the  flower  breathes  fragrance." 

— New  York  Tribune. 

"It  is  Britten  straight  from  the  heart,  and  with  a  natural  grace  of  style 
that  no  amount  of  polishing  could  have  imparted." — Chicago  Record- Herald. 

''The  editors  are  to  be  congratulated  ;  it  is  not  every  day  that  one  comes 
on  such  material  as  this  long-hidden  diary." — Louisville  Evening  Post. 

41  It  is  a  book  that  would  have  delighted  Charles  Lamb." 

— Houston  Chronicle. 

D.    APPLETON     AND    COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


44  EVERY   AMERICAN   SHOULD  READ  IT." 

— The  News,  Providence. 


The  Life  and  Times  of  Thomas  Jefferson. 

By  THOMAS  E.  WATSON,  Author  of  "The  Story  of 
France,"  "  Napoleon,"  etc.  Illustrated  with  many  Portraits 
and  Views.  8vo.  Attractively  bound,  $2.50  net ;  postage, 
17  cents  additional. 

Mr.  Watson  long  since  acquired  a  national  reputation  in  connection 
with  his  political  activities  in  Georgia.  He  startled  the  public  soon 
afterward  by  the  publication  of  a  history  of  France,  which  at  once 
attracted  attention  quite  as  marked,  though  different  in  kind.  His  book 
became  interesting  not  alone  as  the  production  of  a  Southern  man 
interested  in  politics,  but  as  an  entirely  original  conception  of  a  great 
theme.  There  was  no  question  that  a  life  of  Jefferson  from  the  hands  of 
such  a  writer  would  command  very  general  attention,  and  the  publishers 
had  no  sooner  announced  the  work  as  in  preparation  than  negotiations 
were  begun  with  the  author  by  two  of  the  best-known  newspapers  in 
America  for  its  publication  in  serial  form.  During  the  past  summer  the 
appearance  of  the  story  in  this  way  has  created  widespread  comment 
which  has  now  been  drawn  to  the  book  just  published. 

Opinions  by  some  of  the  Leading  Papers. 

"  A  vastly  entertaining  polemic.  It  directs  attention  to  many  undoubtedly 
neglected  facts  which  writers  of  the  North  have  ignored  or  minimized." 

—  The  New  York  Times  Saturday  Review  of  Books. 

"A  noble  work.  It  may  well  stand  on  the  shelf  beside  Morley's 
'Gladstone'  and  other  epochal  biographical  works  that  have  come  into 
prominence.  It  is  deeply  interesting  and  thoroughly  fair  and  just." 

—  The  Globe- Democrat,  St.  Louis. 

11  The  book  shows  great  research  and  is  as  complete  as  it  could  possibly  be, 
and  every  American  should  read  it."— The  News,  Providence. 

"A  unique  historical  work."—  The  Commercial  Advertiser,  New  York. 

"Valuable  as  an  historical  document  and  as  a  witness  to  certain  great  facts 
in  the  past  life  of  the  South  which  have  seldom  been  acknowledged  by 
historians." — The  Post,  Louisville. 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW     YORK, 


HISTORIC  LIVES  SERIES. 

A  series  of  popular  biographies  dealing  with  famous  men 
of  all  times  and  countries,  written  in  brief  form  and  repre 
senting  the  latest  knowledge  on  the  subjects,  each  illus 
trated  with  appropriate  full-page  pictures,  the  authors  being 
chosen  for  their  special  knowledge  of  the  subjects. 


Each  i2mo,  Illustrated,  Cloth,  $1.00  net. 

Pottage,  10  cents  additional. 
NO  W  READ  Y. 

Father  Marquette,  the  Explorer  of  the  Mississippi. 

By  REUBEN  GOLD  THWAITES,  Editor  of  "The  Jesuit 
Relations,"  etc. 

Daniel  Boone. 

By  REUBEN  GOLD  THWAITES,  Editor  of  "The  Jesuit 
Relations,"  "  Father  Marquette/'  etc. 

Horace  Greeley. 

By  WILLIAM  A.  LINN,  Author  of  "The  Story  of  the 
Mormons." 

Sir  William  Johnson. 

By  AUGUSTUS    C.    BUELL,    Author  of    "  Paul    Jones, 

Founder  of  the  American  Navy." 

Anthony  Wayne. 
By  JOHN  R.  SPEARS. 

Champlain :  The  Founder  of  New  France. 

By  EDWIN  ASA  Dix,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  Formerly  Fellow  in 
History  in  Princeton  University  ;  Author  of  '*  Deacon  Brad 
bury,"  *'  A  Midsummer  Drive  through  the  Pyrenees,"  etc. 

James  Oglethorpe :  The  Founder  of  Georgia. 

By  HARRIET  C.  COOPER. 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK. 


By  JOHN  BACH  McMASTER,  PhJX 

History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States, 

From  the  Revolution  to  the  Civil  War.  By  JOHN  BACH 
MCMASTER.  To  be  completed  in  seven  volumes.  Vols.  I, 
II,  III,  IV,  V,  and  VI  now  ready.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt  top, 
$2.50  each. 

44  A  history  sui  generis  which  has  made  and  will  keep  its  own  place  in 
our  literature." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

"  Those  who  can  read  between  the  lines  may  discover  in  these  pages  con 
stant  evidences  of  care  and  skill  and  faithful  labor,  of  which  the  old-time 
superficial  essayists,  compiling  library  notes  on  dates  and  striking  events, 
had  no  conception." — Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

"  Professor  McMaster  has  more  than  fulfilled  the  promises  made  in  his 
first  volumes,  and  his  work  is  constantly  growing  better  and  more  valuable 
as  he  brings  it  nearer  to  our  own  time.  His  style  is  clear,  simple,  and  idio 
matic,  and  there  is  just  enough  of  the  critical  spirit  in  the  narrative  to  guide 
the  reader." — Boston  Herald. 

44  Take  it  all  in  all,  the  '  History  '  promises  to  be  the  ideal  American  his 
tory.  Not  so  much  given  to  dates  and  battles  and  great  events  as  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  like  a  great  panorama  of  the  people,  revealing  their  inner  life  and 
action.  It  contains,  with  all  Its  sober  facts,  the  spice  of  personalities  and 
incidents,  which  relieves  every  page  from  dulness." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

Professor  McMaster  has  told  us  what  no  other  historians  have  told.  .  .  . 
The  skill,  the  animation,  the  brightness,  the  force,  and  the  charm  with  which 
he  arrays  the  facts  before  us  are  such  that  we  can  hardly  conceive  of  more 
interesting  reading  for  an  American  citizen  who  cares  to  know  the  nature  of 
those  causes  which  have  made  not  only  him  but  his  environment  and  the 
opportunities  life  has  given  him  what  they  are." — Neva  York  Times. 

With  the  Fathers. 

Studies  in  the  History  of  the  United  States.  8vo. 
Cloth,  $1.50. 

44  Professor  McMaster's  essays  possess  in  their  diversity  a  breadth  which 
covers  most  of  the  topics  which  are  current  as  well  as  historical,  and  each 
is  so  scholarly  in  treatment  and  profound  in  judgment  that  the  importance 
of  their  place  in  the  library  of  political  history  can  not  be  gainsaid." — 
Washington  Times. 

"The  book  is  of  great  practical  value,  as  many  of  the  e?says  throw  a 
broad  light  over  living  questions  of  the  day.  Professor  McMaster  has  a  clear, 
simple  style  that  is  delightful.  His  facts  are  gathered  with  great  care,  and 
almirably  interwoven  to  impress  the  subject  under  discussion  upon  the  mind 
of  the  reader." — Chicago  Jnter-Ocean. 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


AN   INSPIRING   BOOK. 


The  Young  Man  and  the  World. 

By  ALBERT  J.  BEVERIDGE,  U.  S.  Senator  from  Indiana, 
Author  of  "The  Russian  Advance."  i2mo.  Ornamental 
Cloth,  $1.50  net. 

This  book  will  go  into  every  household  where  there  is  a  son  and  a 
mother.  It  is  a  talk  with  the  young  man  about  the  young  man  of 
the  young  man's  country  by  its  most  prominent  young  man. 

Plowboy  at  12  ;  logger  at  14  ;  graduated  from  college,  De  Pauw,  at  23  ; 
plainsman,  law  clerk,  lawyer ;  U.  S.  Senator  at  36 — that  is  what  Senator 
Beveridge,  poor  and  without  a  pull,  has  done  by  sheer  pluck  and  hard 
work.  And  his  steady  conservative  work  in  the  Senate  has  won  him  the 
equal  regard  of  older  men  also.  His  name  spells  success. 

Bishop  Charles  C.  McCabe  says  :  "  I  wish  that  20,000,000  copies  of 
the  book  might  be  published." 

John  Mitchell  says  :  "I  trust  it  may  have  a  place  in  the  life  and 
in  the  home  of  every  young  man." 

Alfred  Henry  Lewis  says :  "  It  is  a  sparkling  well-head  of  courage, 
optimism,  and  counsel." 

Senator  William  P.  Frye  says :  "I  have  no  hesitation  in  com 
mending  it  to  the  young  men  of  our  country." 

Speaker  J.  G.  Cannon  says :  "  It  is  a  very  interesting  book  by  a 
very  interesting  man." 

Representative  Champ  Clark  says :  "  It  is  very  worthy  the  perusal 
of  every  youth  in  the  land." 

David  War  field  says  :     "  If  the  reader  heeds  its  precepts 
1  It  must  follow  as  the  night  the  day 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man.' 

Hamlet,  Act  1,  Sc.  8." 

James  Rudolph  Garfield  says  :  "  I  have  read  it  with  a  great  deal  of 
interest." 

President  Edwin  H.  Hughes  says :  "  Any  young  man  who  reads 
this  book  cannot  fail  to  be  made  stronger  and  better." 

President  IV.  E.  Stone  says :  "  It  is  brim  full  of  suggestions  which 
every  young  man  should  know  and  heed." 

General  Charles  King  says  :  "  Here  is  a  book  our  American  youth 
may  study  with  his  Bible." 

A  cowboy  in  Arizona  writes  :  "  It  is  the  embodiment  of  every 
thing  honorable,  noble,  and  upright  in  life." 

D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


AN  EXTRAORDINARY  BOOK. 

The  Unofficial    Letters   of  an   Official's 
Wife. 

By  EDITH  MOSES.  i2mo.  Cloth,  gilt  top, 
$1.50  net. 

This  is  a  volume  of  actual  letters  which  Mrs.  Moses, 
the  wife  of  Professor  Moses,  wrote  from  the  Philippines  to 
her  relatives  here  in  the  United  States.  Professor  Moses, 
who  is  connected  with  the  University  of  California,  was  one 
of  the  five  members  of  the  first  commission,  of  which  Sec 
retary  Taft  was  the  head,  sent  out  by  the  U.  S.  Government 
to  organize  the  government  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  The 
members  of  this  commission  were  practically  the  first 
important  Americans  to  go  to  the  Philippines  in  a  peaceful 
and  a  civil  capacity.  Mrs.  Moses,  therefore,  saw  the  social, 
political,  and  home  life  in  Manila  as  well  as  in  the  provinces 
and  the  different  islands  before  American  civilization  had 
entered  there  to  any  extent.  Her  letters,  while  descriptive, 
have  a  very  definite  connection  one  with  the  other.  They 
describe  the  arrival  at  the  Philippines,  the  beginning  of  life 
there,  housekeeping,  the  seemingly  strange  methods  of  daily 
life,  servant  problems,  and  so  on,  in  Manila.  Nothing  like 
these  letters  has  appeared  in  regard  to  the  Philippine 
Islands  at  any  time.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  further 
more,  that  these  letters  are  not  in  any  way  technical  or 
having  to  do  with  the  organization  of  the  Philippine  govern 
ment.  They  are,  as  the  title  suggests,  quite  "  unofficial " 
letters  of  a  lady  who,  because  of  her  connection  with  offi 
cial  circles,  saw  many  things  which  an  ordinary  traveler 
never  could  see. 

D.     APPLETON     AND    COMPANY,    NEW    YORK. 


LIBRARY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWE1 

LOAN  DEPT. 


-tlBRARTuSt    AHK  1 4  Ib/l  5 1 


LD  62A-30m-2,'69 
(J6534slO)9412A— A-32 


General  Library     . 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 


YB  44925 
U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


25698? 


hJh 


I 


